Free Quarantine: Stories by Rahul Mehta Page B

“Let’s order Chinese.”
    Later that night, my brother came out on the porch while I was smoking. Ellison hadn’t emerged from the bedroom all evening. Frank was inside watching cable.
    “Can I have a drag?” my brother asked. I handed him my cigarette, and he took a long, slow drag that must have given him a head rush.
    “You should have said something to Ellison,” I said.
    Rajiv returned my cigarette. “When Ellison and I first met,” he said, “I was a mess. Really a mess. I didn’t tell you and Mom and Dad because I didn’t want you to worry. I was having anxiety attacks. They felt like heart attacks. The first time I had one, I thought I was dying. I even called an ambulance. But they kept happening. I’d cry all the time. I couldn’t sleep in my apartment alone. Ellison was so sweet to me. She had problems, too. We took care of each other. When I look back on that time, I don’t know how I would have made it without her.”
    “Do you still have those attacks?” I asked.
    “No,” he said. “I got better. But Ellison’s getting worse. We have always been there for each other. So you can see why I can’t ‘say something,’ why I can’t stand up to her or talk back.”
    “I didn’t mean you should have stood up for yourself,” I said. “I meant you should have comforted her.”
    Rajiv was silent for a moment. “You’re one to be giving relationship advice,” he said. Then he asked if he could have a whole cigarette to himself. He smoked it and then left, and by the time I went inside he was asleep.
    The next morning when I woke up, Rajiv had made pancakes. Ellison was smiling. They drove us to the airport, and we laughed in the car at a funny old song on the radio, and they hugged and kissed us good-bye. As I walked toward the gate, I looked back and saw them, arms around each other, waving.
    A t the club on Avenue B, there is a long line outside. The man standing in front of us is wearing fake fur and sunglasses and sputtering into a silver cell phone. His backpack is shaped like an alligator, and the green sequins glitter in the light from the streetlamp.
    Inside, I realize I have forgotten how to dance. I have a couple of drinks and try to relearn by watching people around me. I imitate the way one man’s arm windshield-wipes the air. I imitate a bald man who throws his head around as though he has a great quantity of hair and he is making patterns, like a gymnast with a ribbon.
    Frank goes to get more drinks. A boy rubs up against me and I rub back. He is cute. I lean against him, following the way his body moves. He is very young, six or seven years younger than I am, too young to be here. His thin face and wrists and long eyelashes remind me of myself when I was his age.
    It’s happening. I can tell it’s happening, and there is nothing I can do to stop it. I tug on his shirt and pull him off the dance floor. I take him toward the back room. Frank is there with our drinks. He is with a man, and the man’s hand is on his back. They are entering the back room, too. Frank sees me. He is still looking at me, when I say to the boy, “Let’s go somewhere else,” and we turn and leave.
    Outside, we walk past a couple of buildings. I push the boy into an alley. I don’t look at him anymore. I don’t kiss him or stroke his cock through his jeans. I turn the boy around, push him against the brick wall, yank down his jeans. I roll on a condom I got from the safe-sex people in the club, and I start fucking him. I don’t prep his asshole with my fingers. I know it hurts. I know from experience and from the tightness of his ass and the way he doesn’t grunt or moan but cries. I want this to be over. I want to be home with Frank, asleep.
    Afterward, I ask the boy if he’s OK and he says yes. I’m sorry, I say, I’m really, really sorry. I tell him I’m going inside and he says OK. I find Frank sitting on a couch alone. The man who was with him in the back room is gone. I ask Frank if