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Getting right down to brass tacks: Matt loves that he's Jay's first boyfriend, but he wishes he were Jay's first everything. I really have been here since the start, can't you see? I chiseled my name right there. It's covetous and ugly and potentially quite cruel, actually, but it's honest, and there's no sense in lying to himself. It lives in the little mole-rat of his heart, burrowing underground, reminding him only at the least opportune of times.
Like right now, when they're just trying to have a normal night watching old Twilight Zone episodes and slapping each other whenever they fall inevitably into the Rod Serling impression.
"Remember when we used to watch this? When we were kids?"
"Yes, man. We taped that one, the one with the guy with the books at the end of the world, you watched that one. Over and over." Jay had been so sweet and sad and thoughtful about it. Matt hadn't thought about that in a long time, baby Jay in the cold light of that basement TV, probably thinking about all of his cassettes or whatever.
"We're doing the same shit now."
"Now we sleep in the same bed. I think– I think we're doing different shit now." Matt shifts in his seat. Something very interesting is coming to him. "Do you think we ever could've? Back then?"
A distant look sweeps over Jay's face. "How far back?"
"Y'know." Matt fiddles with the hem of the curtain, fake casual. "When you were, like, seventeen."
"Seventeen?" It splats out of Jay's mouth like something foul, then several expressions cross his face in quick succession. "You mean when I. You'd wanna. Matt, you were fifteen back then."
Matt crosses his arms, shifts his weight. "Okay, well, pretend–"
"Well, we can pretend you weren't–"
"Oh, can we? Can we pretend?" Matt's shouting for no reason, just deflecting, saying nothing, awful idea to start talking about this. One of his worst. Jay's about to get up, Matt just knows, he's about to get up, start packing.
Matt hears his own name. Jay's big dumb doe eyes are on him. Headlights. If the deer got a hold of the headlights, wouldn't that be a coup, and you'd call that monster Jay McCarrol. "Would you breathe? You're all red."
Matt does. The TV is on pause. Jay must've done it.
"Now, why are we freaking out about when I lost my virginity?"
"We're not, Jay! We just think about it!" Breathing. He parcels out his next words with care. "We think about. How we wish we could have. Been there."
"You do."
"Yes."
"With me and Anna Chen?"
"Bird! Just you."
"Oh!" Jay catches on, finally, the stupid chicken. He looks away for a few moments, looking like he's thinking, then finally his spine straightens. "Hold on," Jay says, cutting eyes at Matt, and this is when Jay's whole body language changes, Matt sees it, and he becomes the Jay of MattandJay, of Nirvanna the Band, of something bigger than both of them. It thrums in his chest. Between his legs. "We could pretend."
•
Upstairs, at the other whiteboard, the one strategically placed next to the bed:
"What does virginity even mean, anyway?"
"Well…"
Bird's got his arms and legs all twisted up in some kind of claymation character's strange, prim approximation of sitting. If he's uncomfortable with this, he's the one who brought it up. Matt thinks on it some more, the whole concept: if he were a virgin before getting together with Jay, would he still have been after the first time they hooked up? What they did certainly felt like sex to him. His entire view of this is turning around by the second. Is this how activists are made? And what of lesbians, his sisters-in-arms? Wait, is virginity even real?
Matt doesn't realize he's verbalized the last part until Jay is whipping his face toward him, an unreadable look on it, saying "I don't think that's for us to decide."
Right. Okay. If they're going to recreate Jay's first time, they can do anything. Right? Matt uncaps a marker and writes 45 Y.O.V. PLAN at the top of the board. Had to compromise on a smaller one for up here. It necessitates shorter titles.
"Bird? How you feeling?"
"I'm okay," Jay says, but his voice lilts up at the end in a telltale way. "What's 'yawv?'"
"'Year-old virgin,' Jay. What's up. Spit it out."
"I dunno. Nervous."
"Nervous? I'm the one facing the, the Giygas of improv scenes here. Or– is this– are you already in it? Are we doing this already?"
"No. Matt. 'S like." Jay shrugs, but it's all jerky. Man, he really is nervous. Matt sits down next to him on the bed and snakes an arm around his hips. "Do I have to– be him? By myself? And you're just you?"
"Oh. I guess I'd be fucking a seventeen-year-old. Let's not–"
"No."
"What about when we were living in the apartment?" Instantly, he can see it. Letterbox, greyscale, some nostalgic film grain for good measure. "You, necking bottles of Moosehead all day and playing me Final Fantasy 6 music on the piano. Me, unable to resist your scruffy charm. One thing leads to another…"
Jay ducks his head in that shy way of his, but he twists his smile away. "I don't know. I don't think I wanna be him. Can we just do now? The now-us?"
'Him.' That's so odd. Matt's never known Jay to have such a disparate sense of self. He casts a line wildly, thinking back to the last time he remembers Jay talking about his past self, and doesn't come up with anything out of the ordinary. Vaguely, something waves at him from the other side of the street, telling him that this should alarm him, but he'll give his baby bird whatever worms he wants.
"That's good with me, Jay. It'll be us. Is that okay? We don't have to do this if you don't want to."
Jay nods and gives the verbal "yes," knocking the side of his foot against Matt's. Matt stands with great ceremony and returns to his second favorite place, the sex whiteboard. He jabs the marker at a drawing of a bumblebee in one of its corners, done long ago in permanent ink so it can't be wiped away. "What's this stand for? Don't say Men in Black."
Jay rolls his eyes, but he's smiling, and his shoulders drop. "Bee yourself."
Matt points at him with his whole arm. "You! Beautiful devil in the blue sweater! That's right!"
The beautiful devil's face ducks down, a little spray of silver hair at the crown of his head showing. "You got marker on my pants."
•
By now, a year into this, falling into bed (or couch, or floor, or backyard fence) with Jay has become a lovingly practiced thing. In bed with his best friend, Matt has had the wild pleasure of, over time, morphing from disbelief to gratitude to a bottomless thirst for knowledge. It's gone like so many other things Matt's been obsessed with: film, obsolete game systems, genre TV of the 2000s. A yawning cavern opens up in him that aches, singularly, to know, and to know everything.
"Lemme tell you something," Jay says, gasping, Matt sucking frankly irresponsible bruises into his neck.
"Yeah?" Matt replies. Jay's fingers flirt around the neck of his t-shirt.
"I haven't done this before." The words leave Jay in a rush. He's so pretty. Something wells up in Matt, and he lets it breathe. "Don't– don't make fun of me."
"Hey, hey," Matt soothes, his hand circling on Jay's back. "It's okay. I won't. I mean– I guess I get why you think I would." Always rolling his eyes, smug sexy Bird. "But I got you." Matt trails a finger down the planes of Jay's face, down his forehead, his cheek, the corner of his clever lips. "I love you."
It's art to Matt. A part of the way the universe was set up for him that he never got to see. Like when he was 35 and finally watched Metropolis. Jay's eyes are so, so big, and they're looking right at him. Nowhere else. Matt kisses him, and kisses him, and they rid themselves of their clothes, and Matt keeps kissing him all over, his collarbones, the insides of his elbows, the slope of his belly. Jay reacts minutely to everything, little noises at every kiss.
"Hey, Birdie."
"Hi." Jay's whole face is red. He's really selling this. He scrubs a hand over Matt's hair where he is down near Jay's crotch.
"Can I suck you off a lil?"
Jay snorts a laugh. "Okay."
"Anyone ever done that for you?"
He purses his lips and shakes his head no.
"Alright. So just. I'm gonna just." Matt takes a breath, and closes his hand around Jay's hard, leaking dick. Jay sucks in a harsh breath through his nose. They're recreating the first time anyone else ever touched him here. Matt tries so, so hard not to freak out. "You feel free to touch me however. You know."
Matt had thought his real first blowjob was nervewracking. This is a whole other nexus of pressure. Right as his mouth's about an inch from the head of Jay's cock he looks up at him, his face, those lovely angles, a little double line between his eyebrows.
"Love you, Bee." Before Jay can say anything back, Matt licks a wide stripe up Jay's dick. Jay chokes on Matt's name, loud; Matt hums a satisfied laugh and gives him little washes of his tongue over the head, just a little reward. He'll be nice today. It's Bird's first time.
Jay's hand, those musician fingers, don't even have to see them to know how lovely they are sliding into Matt's hair and anchoring there at the nape of his neck. That's all they do as Matt gives it to him neatly, not too much suction or too much tongue. Don't want him to pop off too early, now. Jay's other hand comes sliding down to pet at Matt's cheek, poking at it with his thumb, and it takes Matt a second to realize he's trying to feel himself in Matt's mouth.
Matt schlurps off him, squinting, mouth still open in an attempt to form something to say. Jay, up there on the pillow, is like an angel, with his hair flopping, his lips all bitten and pink.
Back down Matt goes, carefully lodging Jay's dick in the side of his mouth, distending his cheek like a crude joke. One he's made a thousand times. His eyes don't leave Jay's, and Jay reaches down again and massages the head of his own cock through the skin of Matt's cheek.
"Fuck," Jay whines, his voice so high, "I can feel that," – no shit, Birdie – and suddenly Matt tastes a big blurt of pre on one side of his mouth, and they need to move this shit along.
Carefully, carefully, Matt pops off of Jay again, crawling back up, and Jay shyly turns to meet him, like a flower, but a small one, like a – what. A foxglove, or something. Matt kisses him, sweet as can be, and Jay makes a little surprised noise. Must be surprised by the taste.
He'd worried Jay would do too much acting. Overacting. Or on the flip side, give him nothing. Matt worries a lot. But Jay, upstairs, in the bed they bought after the bed they trashed, is his perfect scene partner. Generous, aware, receptive. Willing. Open. All Matt has to say is I gotcha and Jay nuzzles right in. If only Matt could get him on camera like this. A dream on celluloid.
"How are you, Bird? It's good?"
"Yeah." His hairline and the divots of his collarbone are shining. The inner corners of his eyes. "Good." He swallows, and Matt watches his Adam's apple working. "I'm glad this is with you."
Jesus. Arrow to the heart. Matt has to press a hand to his eyes and look away. How did he get here? How did he manage to land this? Jay really, actually loving him? Trusting him with something like this? There've been times – too many times – over the years wherein Jay wouldn't even trust Matt to do the dishes. There aren't words for how much it means to him. He wants words in every language to give to Jay, and then he'll want more.
"I am too, Jay," says Matt, "I'll take care of you." There goes the crinkly smile, the fox's teeth.
There's a beat of silence, after which both of them start at the same time:
"So what–"
"How do you–"
"You go, Bird."
Jay clears his throat. "How do you wanna do it?"
"Well, I was thinking," and Matt has to rein himself in, not to play too coy, God, he's slipping up, what kind of improviser is he, "You don't have to, y'know, go all the way on your first time. In case it's, I don't know, daunting. There's other things you can do. I can show you."
Jay squints. "What do you mean." With a burst of affection, Matt recognizes young Jay coming through. Great acting choice, Bird.
"Okay, so," Matt turns around, laying on his side, and raises his leg up just a bit, enough to fit his hand between his thighs, which he does. "You can– Instead of, the, the traditional fucking, you know, you can fuck my legs. My thighs." He's never said it plain like this before. It makes his face burn, even though he's faced completely away from Jay.
"Whoa," Jay says, low, and Matt feels Jay's fingertips meet his own between his legs. "I didn't even know you could do that."
"Got a lot to learn, Birdie."
"And that feels good for you?"
"You kidding? You'll see." Matt twists back, laying eyes on Jay again, who's sliding his hand along Matt's hip, his waist. Copping a feel. The layers to this guy's acting are absurd.
Jay starts shifting closer, knees knock together, elbows pull at hair. Transitional discomforts. "Can't see you," Jay murmurs, like he didn't mean to.
"It's okay, Bird."
Closer, closer, Jay lays his head on top of Matt's, temple to temple, parallel lines. Phasing into each other. Matt can hear Jay's pulse. Jay feeds his dick into the channel of Matt's thighs, Matt keeping them pressed tightly there. The nudge up against his ass, his balls, sears him straight through. Jay starts slow, but it's not long before he lets go, clutching Matt around the chest and hammering away at him. Matt locks his ankles together against the force of Jay's rabbiting hips.
"It's good, Birdie?" says Matt, reaching back and feeling for Jay, the bottle-slimness of him, keeping a hand on his lithe little ass.
Jay's talking – he's not usually much of a talker in bed, that's much more Matt's area, but it's like he's talking to himself, and Matt can catch little snatches of words. Never g–. Rid of. Got me.
Something sizzles, fizzes deep in Matt's chest. He wraps a hand around his own neglected dick and starts stroking. "You're breaking character, Bird."
"No'm not," Jay gasps, hips snapping, hitting Matt's taint just right, God damn. "Think that no matter what. If we fucked or not. Loved you forever." It hits him like a Looney Tune anvil to the head, stupid with it, petal-plucker in the sunshine. Matt gets his thumb under the head of his cock, automatic, and lets his orgasm carry him away.
A second later he blinks back in to find Jay climbing on top of him. "Fuck, shit, sorry," Matt says, "I'm not usually. uh. I don't. That was too fast."
Jay, the aggravatingly great improviser, is all smiles. "Are you serious? All that for me?" Slowly, slowly, he strokes himself astride Matt. "That's so hot."
Matt flushes crimson.
"You like me on top of you?"
What have they created? "Yeah, you skinny little fuck." Jay's face, pink, hair a mess, and his hand, wet, thumb circling. Matt looks back and forth between them so fast he gets nauseous.
"Maybe for my second time I can ride you, huh?"
"C'mon, Bird, I love this Masterpiece Theatre, but–"
"What theatre?" Jay speeds up the movement of his hand, leans his weight forward, his hair falling into Matt's forehead. "Fuck, Matt, can't believe you- let me fuck you like that- you're so fucking-" and Jay comes over Matt's chest with a whine, knocking his head into Matt's.
They breathe there for a few moments, Matt feeling around for the tissues. "Damn."
"God." Jay flops over onto his side, looks over. Lingering on Jay's face just because he can, Matt catches a tiny little smile there before Jay secrets it away and says, "What?"
"Nothing. Successful plan, eh?" Matt rolls over, goes in for a kiss, but Jay has a weird, contemplative look. "What's up."
"I can't help but think about him. Me."
Matt raises an eyebrow. "Young you?"
"I mean, it wasn't like I was being him, but – you know."
"Uh huh." Seventeen-year-old Jay, scared to death of piano recitals, not yet grown into his features. Twenty-two-year-old Jay, meeting Matt at the Greyhound station with his entire dorm packed into two suitcases, still reeling from dropping out of music school. Jay at twenty-six, making Matt crazy like it's his job, dating Emilia and kissy-facing Erik. If Matt could go back and tell them where they end up, would he? He thinks for a long moment about that apartment, the nights he stayed up thinking, thinking, aroused, confused. No, don't be stupid, there'd be the fabric of space-time to worry about.
Jay pipes up again. "So now do you think this could've been us? Together back then?"
"Oh, God, no. Disaster. We'd have burnt down about ten more houses."
"Well, you know how long I was into you."
Matt gapes at him. "Famously, I don't, Bird. Every time I ask–"
"Well," Jay repeats, "it was… a really long time. Before even the Christmas parade that we were in, when we drank all that coffee? Like, a year or two before. Must have been eleven or twelve years ago?"
This stops Matt utterly. Ends his processes. "Jay, you're insane. You're deranged! I've been in love with you for twenty years and you didn't know."
"Did you know?"
Matt makes a sour face. He doesn't really think that's quite for him to say. It's been, perhaps, the defining journey of his life: maybe at the end of it, he'll know its complete contours. He reaches up and touches the years that sprout from Jay's head, spun silver, coarser than the black. So pretty they tear his heart right up. He pulls one – the fuck, he hears Jay complain – and holds it up to the light, watching it go translucent.
"Sometimes these things take a while to surface."
"You dumb fuck," Jay replies, and curls his pinky over Matt's, their wordless shorthand, so he knows it's all okay. Still, there's so much in his eyes. Like a whole other world. "Wanna watch videos of trucks crashing into bridges?"
Matt leans in, and they meet each other halfway for a kiss, Matt watching Jay's long eyelashes blur closed.
"Yes, dude. Get the iPad."