Free House of Cabal Volume One: Eden by Wesley McCraw Page B

my underwear. It’s
about as sexually adventurous as I’ve been able to push myself.
    I grab the skin mag from the coffee table and
shove it into a drawer.
    I look through the peephole to make sure it’s
her.
    No one’s there, just a fish-eye view of an
empty porch and rain in the glare of the porch light. The hair on
the back of my neck prickles.
    I don’t want a stranger to see me in my
boxers. They’ll escape if I don’t open the door. I’ll miss my
chance.
    My chance for what? My chance at being
assaulted?
    Stop analyzing this, I tell myself. Stop
thinking.
    I fling open the door to the rain and the
cold and ask more loudly than I intend, “Who’s there?”
     
     
    Cassette Tape Two:
    Something Different
     
    Dolphin wind chimes hang at the side of my
porch and jingle as if panicked. I hold my pajama top closed and
clutch the chimes to silence them.
    Branches and leaves rustle in the wind beyond
the light. Across the street, seemingly deserted houses give no
relief from the darkness. Down the hill, at the end of the block,
floodlights illuminate St. Agnes cathedral. I don’t see anybody
around.
    Wind blows rain onto the floorboards, and
raindrops light up against the night sky as the drops fall and
darken the wood. I imagine the precipitation as flaring meteorites,
pummeling Portland’s skyline. This normality is killing me. You
already know that, don't you? The only person in this whole stupid
world that knows I’m suffering isn’t even real.
    Back inside behind my locked door, my nerves
or the cold from outside causes me to tremble.
    It feels like my life is about to change.
It’s wishful thinking, I’m sure. I’m too much a coward to do
anything. I lead a quite, safe life and so this is what I get.
    The front room windows reveal little but my
reflection. Rain pelts the glass. I’ve been a coward my whole life.
This isn’t some new development.
    I had this horny college roommate named
Randy, this uninhibited jock who would masturbate to Hustler while I was still in the room. I can’t believe I’m telling you
this. Anyway, the first time he did it, I was on my side, on my bed
studying, and he just started pulling away as if it was no big
deal. The hysterical thing was I had no idea what he was doing. I
heard the stroking, but the magazine blocked my view, so I’m
staring at him, trying to figure out why the hell he has this weird
expression, and he sees me watching and says without missing a
beat, “Hey, fag, mind if I blow my wad?”
    It’s hard to express how embarrassed I was. I
don’t remember much after that, just confessing I’d never done
it—jacked off, I mean—and him laughing in disbelief. I remember him
laughing for a long time and telling me that he’d started in grade
school.
    It became this running gag. He would ask me
if I wanted a jack off lesson. One time he brought back this
freshman girl—they were both pretty trashed—and he asked if I
wanted to join them. At the time, I was still a virgin abstaining
until marriage, and I laughed it off and went for a walk.
    I thought of him as a sinner, but deep down,
I wanted to be him. He was respected, he won football games, he
didn't take crap from anyone, he brawled and came out on top, and
he used women like they were objects and they loved him for it. Who
was I? Just some coward, freaked out by college hedonism. Because
of my looks, no shortage of girls came onto me. All I felt was
anxiety. Religion was an excuse. The truth was they scared me. I
was a little boy in a man's body, and Randy's effortless
masculinity humiliated me on a daily basis.
    Sex should be easy for me. I’m in peak
physical condition. People find me attractive. Most of the time sex
is this anxiety-fueled nightmare.
    I need some ice cream and trudge into the
kitchen.
    I dig into a pint of Chocolate Obsession
frozen soy dessert. In two years, I’ll be married. A house with
three bedrooms, a minivan, a dog, a kid. Everything will go
according to plan. I’m