So finally they were here and had to figure out what to do. Ben stretched like a cat, stood up uncertainly, looking at himself in the mirror on the wall by the closet. Ronny watched his expressions, wondering whether he would stay, or pull on his shirt and walk out the door, angry for a week, or a month, or forever. It was now or never, maybe. Ronny kept his mouth shut. Ben was grinding his jaw. “Touch me,” he said. “Don’t just leave me here.”

Ronny stood beside him, touched his shoulders, his face, and leaned against him. Ben swallowed and stepped out of his jeans and laid them over the back of the desk chair. There was so much of him, his skin shining in the dark. Ronny felt the strangeness, the changing moment, a rising and sinking, same as before. He kept one breath and let it out and took in another and let it out but nothing changed, he was throbbing through and through.

“You get undressed, too,” Ben said, and Ronny did, fumbling with zipper and jeans and socks and then bare, shivering in the warm air.

They stood close, pressed against each other. The fact that this aroused them was plain as night. Ronny thought he had better not try too much kissing but after a few moments Ben started it. Ronny let him lead, followed with enough hesitation that he did not seem too eager.

“You ever do this before?” Ben asked.

“No.”

Voice quiet, gruff. “You’re shitting me.”

“No.” Which was true. It was as if he’d been frozen in place, all through high school.

“Jesus.”

“It’s all right,” Ronny said.

“What if I’m messing you up, letting you do this?”

“You’re not. I know what I want.”

In the dark room streetlight fell on them like gauze. The hardness in Ben’s eyes was riddled now with something else, some point of vulnerability that a person could reach. Finally in that moment Ronny trusted he would stay.

Ben was easy to please and had no problem saying what he liked. They managed well enough at first and very well after that. Ronny had studied some pictures at Mac’s porn shop on Franklin Street, and had watched some of the quarter movies when he had the change to spare. How hard could it be when he already knew how a penis worked? He tried to do the same things with his mouth and tongue and hands that he had seen in the movies, that he would have enjoyed if someone were doing them to him. His natural sense took over, and he could feel Ben’s body respond when something felt right. Slow down, go easy, be smooth, oh, yes, that. When Ben’s breath started to change, to shake him, Ronny felt warm, as if he was accomplishing something vital. Ben took over and put his hand in Ronny’s hair and after that Ronny only had to try to keep up. Most of the time that was pretty easy. They felt like one thing, one flesh, same as the Bible called it, though maybe it was an odd time to think of that. But they were moving together, breathing together, feeling each other.