segueing cousins

The lengthy disclaimer you're free to skip. Oh the wonders of compact discs. I was cleaning my room when I found an old CD of stuff I wrote when I was younger. This one takes me back. I remember writing this story in 2005 knowing exactly what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to write and write I did. I wasn’t worried about what people would think. (In fact, prior to me posting this, only two other people have read this story.) I wrote for the sake of writing and it was always enough to keep me going. I was in full control.

Seven years later, I am a corporate slave. Writing is a hobby now and it mostly takes the backseat to reports, presentations and other grown-up shit. This year, I vow to take control of my life again. I will relive my childhood dream, find happiness, and folks, it all starts here.

What you see here is the unedited version, of course. To paint an accurate picture of what I wanted to achieve, I had to post this verbatim. I must warn you. The language is a little more colorful than how I write these days. There are some not-so-subtle attempts at making things rhyme. *cringe* and I was completely obsessed with the word segue. Regardless, I read this and recall my pony-tailed 18-year old self thinking hmm… not bad, kid. Not bad at all.


“THIS SUMMER, I learned that I slept with not one, but two cousins” I announced. I must admit, this probably wasn’t what Ms. Pearson had in mind when she gave us the assignment. “Find something that will make you grow” she said in her voice that quivered desperately. “Tell the class how in one way or another, you have used your summer vacation time wisely with a new lesson in life.” One by one, even the butchest kids held out cheesy mementos of summer camps and stones from lakes in Idaho or Utah all chronicling the wonders that the mind can achieve with a little stimulation. All I had was a picture of the said cousins. I searched far and wide for a lesson but it never came. So in all truth and honesty, I told the class the one thing that I learned that summer and that was that I slept with not one, but two cousins.

It wasn’t really two cousins, if you wanna get all rational about it. One was apparently my cousin and the other was his cousin. One had a dick and the other, well she was a chick. The chick was Annie. She was my best friend. Was my best friend. We grew up together back in Austin, right before the time my mom and I had to move because of the divorce. She and I went to middle school together and later, she moved with us to Colorado. She and I shared my one of my first moments of brutal honesty.

“Will it hurt?” Annie asked, holding the condom out with her free hand. Her other hand was hopelessly occupied with a hairbrush.

“I’m not really sure. This is my first time, too.” I said, stark naked, sitting on the fluffy pink carpeting that went from wall to wall. The carpet’s thick fibers were tickling my butt.

“How do we know what to do?” She said.

“I’m not stupid. Haven’t you watched porn before?” I asked.

“Of course, I have but it’s just not the same, you know? It all seems pretty hard.”

“You wanna see hard? Try having this hard-on.” I said, standing up showing her the woody I’ve been keeping for what felt like hours.

“Who told you to strip anyways?” She said, with a laugh in her voice. “It wasn’t my idea, that’s for sure.”

“Don’t you wanna see some of this?” I said, coming closer to her. She barely covered her eyes, letting out little squeals of excitement.

I looked at her through the mirror and she looked at me. I remember thinking there’s no other girl that I would rather spend this moment with.

“Let’s just get this over with.” She decided. “It’s bad enough being the last virgin in class. Now I have to do it with my best friend?” She looked at me as a hit-and-run dude stares at a doe he’d just run over.

“No offense, man.” She returned. “But, you know what I mean.”

“Sorta.”

“In all fairness, there’s not one other person in the whole world who I would want to pop my cherry.” She said. I came closer and the rest was history, shamefully of course.

And that was it. That was my first time. It was short, not so sweet and full of embarrassing moments here and there. But hey, isn’t that why first times are so hard to forget? At the end of everything, we lay in bed, totally exhausted from letting nature be our guide.

“Phew” I said, obviously beat. “Should’ve rented that movie where they teach you how to fuck.”

“I saw that. Honest… With my brother.” She said, nodding inconsistently. “My brother says his gym teacher could teach sex better than that rip-off.”

We were silent for most parts of the afternoon as the shame and regret of the act slowly ripped through us. All I could hear were the birds outside her window who chirped all throughout the afternoon.

“Why did I do this?” I remember thinking.

“Let’s promise we’ll stay together for a million years.” She said, mapping out the timeframe with her hands raised to the sky. My hand puppet dog bit her left hand as I snarled indiscriminately.

Segue to us three years later. We live in the same city. We almost live in the same block but we barely see each other. We talk haplessly online and through SMS but never the same late night conversations that seem to go on and on for hours. Things were different for the both of us. While she had continued on the straight-A path, my parents divorce held a lot of permanent consequences for me. I was a rebel, a fucking emo for the early parts of the divorce but then I got into all these crazy parties that seemed to go on all night. I had gone from straight-A to barely-see-straight. After a while, I didn’t want to be straight anymore. Add in a few years and a couple of uncomfortable mishaps with that uncle, I emerged a homosexual.

“What?” She said as the messaging program sent chimes with the incoming message. She and I had been chatting all night.

“Yes. I’m gay. Dan finally got to me.”

“Who the hell is Dan?”

“My uncle. My really young uncle, remember?”

“Young? He’s thirty-four and you’re half his age!!!”

“That’s still pretty young considering most of my uncles on my mother’s side are septuagenarians.”

“That’s not true.”

“Okay, so it isn’t but he’s still pretty young.”

“I thought you hated him. He was the one who was always scamming on you, right?”

“Yeah but he’s really nice if you can see past the asshole facade”

“Now are you sure it’s a facade?”

“God, I hope so otherwise I would’ve fucked him all for nothing.”

“…..” She stopped typing after a while but the program kept telling me she was typing a message. My cursor blinked blankly. I must’ve shocked her.

“Did I shick you?” I typed.

“Shick me?”

“I meant shock you.”

“No. Well, sort of.”

“I’m sorry.” I typed but later erased.

“God, is nothing sacred anymore? Where’s the Neil I knew and idiotically loved? It seems like yesterday when we were screwing for the first time and you came all over my…”

“Okay, that’s enough” I said loudly as I closed the window.

A few seconds later, the window popped back.

“There he is. I thought you’d shine through somehow. There’s the Neil I know, or at least his ego who I heard types really well. C’mon, everybody does poorly at their first time. Except Tommy Lee… He must’ve been fucking since day one.”

“Hahaha… it’s a shame sarcasm doesn’t show nicely online than it does in reality. If it did, you’d understand the irony in the situation.”

“The situation isn’t ironic. Stop using words that you don’t know the meaning of.”

“Shut up. I know what ‘ironic’ means.”

“Then use it in the proper context!” she said.

“Sadly, I take no offense in this.”

“Good.”

“Fine”

“Glad to be of service!”

I minimized the window to the taskbar as I continued my online conversations with other people. Two seconds later, she buzzes back.

“BUZZ!!!” The window popped in. “Are you mad?”

“Not really. More of bored-to-tears.”

“Fine, I’ll make it up to you. I’ll fix you up, okay?”

“Fine, who is he. Remember, I like men now.”

“He’s fine. His name’s Martin. I would’ve let him schlam me if only he was mine for the schlamming. But it seems he likes being schlammed as much as you like it so I guess it’s a… PERFECT MATCH” She said in big bold letters. Within seconds, the window was filled with big red hearts.

“I’m sending you a picture.” She said as a window popped up seeking acknowledgement of her online parcel.

“He’s cute” I muttered as I browsed the picture. “Are you sure this is him?” I typed. “You never know with the internet and all.”

“Of course that’s him. Would I lie to you? Plus, I’ve seen him with my own blue eyes.”

“Well, you do have the history…” I typed, recalling the many times she tricked me using different chatting accounts.

“Hey, not fair. Those were all done in the pursuit of pleasure… You chat funny when you think it’s a complete stranger.”

“I’m pretty sure the pleasure was all yours.” I typed. “Good night, I’m sleeping. Got a big day tomorrow.”

“Hey Neil, just one last question.”

“Shoot.”

“Have you slept with him?”

“Nope.”

“Honest?”

“Okay, maybe just a few times but I swear I’m breaking up with him tomorrow!” I said. “It’s one thing to be gay but screwing your kin is just spitting in fate’s eye.”

“It’s nice to see you still have faith, however flimsy.”

“G’night.”

“G’night. Don’t shick me anymore, okay?” She said, a big smiling emoticon beside it.

“Okay.” I said, logging off.

The guy she introduced? Total airhead. But that didn’t stop me. I wanted to explore, expand my territory.

“What’s your name?” I asked, even though I knew his name.

“Martin.”

“I’m Neil” I said.

“So…”

“So…”

The room was as blank as the expressions on our faces.

“Nice place.” I said. “Very minimalist.”

“Thanks.”

I looked at his eyes and I looked at his crotch. I looked at my watch and I looked at my crotch. I just wasted two hours of my life in that horrible date I just had with him. I can see his hard-on from across the room. Mine has been thumping since the cab ride here. I’ve got two choices. Head home and take a long, long, long, cold shower or fuck this guy’s brains off. Let’s just say I’m a slut and leave it at that.

Segue to about half a year later. My dad tells us we’re seeing good ‘ol Uncle Dan. Oh dear, I said to myself. I hope he’s not in another one of his feely moods.

On the way there, amongst the frilly conversations between my mother and my female cousins, I thought to myself ‘What exactly do I know about Uncle Dan? I know that he’s really aggressive in bed and that he has a weird taking to underage boys and… and… and… nothing. Nada. Zilch. I really had nothing on me. Our relationship was just rooted on weird, casual, pedophilic, incest-ridden, homosexual sex. Now if that didn’t spell dysfunction with capital punishment, I didn’t know what did.

So I guess you all probably see where all this is going. When we got there, there he was. Good ‘ol Uncle Dan who is as dysfunctional as the sun is bright. Today, he had company.

“I want y’all to meet me son.” He said. None of us knew he had a son so you could understand the shock in everyone’s faces.

His back was turned against us as this bizarre man looked at the old pictures on top of the piano. Everything about him braved the sea of unfamiliarity but something told me this guy and I had met someplace else.

“Dan, I didn’t know you had a son.” My mother said in a disparaged tone.

“His name’s Martin. Martin, this is the family.” Uncle Dan said as he introduced us one by one.

It was then that the whole world stopped. I looked around for a place to hide. I wanted to pillage time; needed just a little more to find a nice, quiet spot to hide or even run away. I imagined dumping my head in the garbage bin if only the place wasn’t so utterly filthy. I ran to the bathroom and traces of this morning’s meal went down the drain.

“What’s wrong, honey?” Aunt Josie asked as I stepped out the bathroom. “Something you ate not sitting right with you?”

“Lady, you have no idea.” I said as images my encounter with Martin filled my head. I fudge-packed him! I swallowed his cum! The thoughts kept ringing in my head.

“Oh lord, here comes another one” I squealed as I ran to the bathroom. After a few more moments of kicking myself in the head, I stepped outside for some fresh air.

“So did you know at that time?” I asked Martin who was smoking on the front porch.

“No, of course not. I found out right around your second bulimic sprint.” He dismissed.

“Oh God” I said. It was all I could say at that time. He didn’t seem as affected at that time.

“And Annie?” I asked. “How the heck does she know you?”

“We’re… sorta… cousins, too.”

“Really?” I asked, hoping he’d turn around and tell me it was all a joke.

“Yeah. On my mother’s side and all.”

“Where the heck does she get off pimping cousins?!”

“Ha. She’s crazy like that. That chick’s crazy. She made a pass at me and all even though we were like, cousins. I finally told her I was gay just to keep her at bay.”

His rhyming didn’t calm me down.

“You said you were an investment banker by day and cartoonist by night. You had me believing that shit about your dad passing and you inheriting your family’s business. I know Uncle Dan. He ain’t dead, nor does he have a business!!!”

“Oh yeah, you said your father killed your mother, leaving you to the custody of your blind stepfather. I’ve seen your mother. She ain’t dead! Jeez, man! You gave me nightmares for about a week!” I snickered as he told me this. I had a different story for every guy I went out with.

I looked at him with disparity. Here’s the guy that in every single way should repulse me. He’s my cousin. He’s my first boyfriend’s son. He’s my first girlfriend’s first cousin. He has smelly privates, this I know personally. But I was entering a whole new level of dysfunction. I had stepped into… the twilight zone.

“There’s a bedroom upstairs with a queen sized bed.” He said, with a weird look in his eyes.

“Are you crazy? You’re my goddamn cousin! Don’t look at me like that!”

“Don’t look at you like what?”

“Like you’ve got a sweet tooth and I’m some goddamn Popsicle!”

“So you remember?” He teased. I suddenly remembered why oral sex was so different with Martin.

“So how ‘bout it, Neil. For old time’s sake?” He said. His eyes told a story different from what my logical mind was telling me. I nodded gently as he held out his hand so that I could follow him.

“Oh Daaaaaaaaaaaad…” he trilled on our way up the stairs.

This was a whole new level of dysfunction for me. Something tells me I’m going straight to Hades for this.

♫: fun. featuring Janelle Monáe | We Are Young (2011)
Photo: cArLo

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