I let that part win for once. Who the hell cared what some frumpy West End Avenue lady my mom’s age thought?

  “Yes!” I yelled, purposefully not lowering my voice. “But I’m pretty sure it was Das Booty.”

  “Yep. He was in a submarine,” CJ said. Then he lowered his voice into that of a terrible porn actor. “Hello, Captain, I’m gonna fix your submarine REAL GOOD,” he said, and then he started humming that tawdry porn music. “How about you lower your periscope right into my—”

  “Excuse me!” the woman interrupted. “This is extremely inappropriate!”

  CJ turned his body to her and sized her up. He spoke calmly. “Inappropriate is in the eye of the beholder. To me, having a president who took over four years to say the name of a disease that is killing tens of thousands of gay men is inappropriate. But I totally get that for you, it’s two fags joking about sex.”

  It was amazing how quickly she stood and tromped to the front.

  It was equally stunning how quickly a manager arrived, and how quickly we were escorted out of the restaurant.

  “Oh no!” CJ said loudly as we were marched out, single file, because there was no room for double. “Where will I get a mediocre hamburger now?”

  What is this life? I thought as we found ourselves out on the sidewalk. Whatever it was, I hoped it was worth being eighty-sixed from my favorite restaurant. With any luck, they wouldn’t remember me the next time I came in.

  The sun had set, and Broadway was alive and gearing up for a Friday night. We walked uptown aimlessly. I wasn’t sure if any Upper West Side restaurants were ready for CJ. I wasn’t sure the streets were ready for his pink triangle shirt. And part of me, for once, didn’t care at all. I felt deliciously free, like it was a summer night and school was out, and I could just float on out of the restaurant and up into the sky and never come back to earth.

  “My life’s dream is to meet Robin Byrd,” CJ said after a while, and I laughed.

  Robin Byrd was this weird middle-aged stripper lady with a demented smile who danced provocatively in a black crochet bikini on an all-red set with a heart-shaped neon sign that read, The Robin Byrd Show. It came on after eleven p.m. and only on Manhattan Cable TV, the low-budget channels that in the late evenings featured mostly phone sex ads. She’d have male strippers come on and sometimes take phone calls. The callers never wanted to talk to her. They were always men and always wanted to talk to the hot guys. It was a terrible, terrible show, and on Friday nights I waited impatiently for my parents to go to bed so I could sneak out to the living room, sit one inch from the set, my hand on the channel button just in case, and put the sound so low I could barely hear it. And in that way, I’d bask in the warm glow of the TV, all senses on overdrive because I was being naughty.

  “I think this is a worthy goal. Always set your sights high,” I said as we passed H&H Bagels.

  “The Closet Case Show!” CJ nearly yelled.

  “Yes!” I said. That show featured a man wearing a bandana over his face, sitting in an empty room, wearing nothing but underwear and talking in a seductive voice. Sometimes he had guest stars on, again strippers. It deserved many Emmys.

  “I watch for the commercials,” he said.

  “Oh my God. The commercials. They always cut the good stuff out, though,” I said. “Do you know I’m seventeen and have never seen a porn movie? Manhattan Cable TV is my only outlet and I have to sneak into the living room and pray my parents don’t leave their bedroom for a glass of water or something.”

  “That’s why I go to Les Hommes.” He pointed up Eightieth toward Amsterdam.

  “Where?”

  He rolled his eyes. “Don’t tell me you haven’t been?”

  “What in the world is Les Hommes? The men in French?”

  “Just up the street next to the laundromat. It’s this little theater where you sit in the dark and watch gay porn. There’s a back area with booths, just big enough for two.”

  “What?” I stopped walking. I found it a little hard to keep Perfect Micah bottled up with this one.

  He shrugged. “Just another part of the gay world. Deny people the right to be who they are and any reasonable outlets for expressing themselves and they will find them or create them anyway.”

  I stared down the street. All this time, I’d been living six blocks from a place like that without even knowing it. And would I have wanted to know it? Hearing the description gave me a bunch of feelings all at once. Revulsion. Shame. Lots of curiosity. Arousal. And most of all, fear. There was this disease that was a death sentence. Who was going to dirty bookstores during a plague? No way. CJ had to be lying. Was he?

  My mouth just about hit the floor. “You’ve done that?”

  “I’ve dabbled.”

  “What? Really? How do you even … what is … how … ?”

  He laughed. “I’d like to buy a vowel?”

  “I just. Is it safe?”

  He tilted his head and looked at me. “Define safe.”

  “Safe like could you get robbed or killed?” Or could you die of AIDS?

  “I never have. Well, killed, once or twice.”

  “Okay. Well. Wow.” I felt myself being pulled away from CJ, and I hated it because so much was pulling me toward him at the exact same time.

  He started walking up Broadway again. “It’s okay,” he said. “You’re new. Also, you have parents, which makes a difference.”

  I played those words through my mind a few times. What does that mean? He has Jack, who is a parent, right? But I didn’t want to insult him or seem naive.

  “Right,” I said.

  As we approached the Loews Theater on Eighty-Fourth, I was feeling weird. Who was this person? This person who went to places with back rooms for two? Part of me wanted to run. Part of me wouldn’t. Couldn’t.

  Like he could read my mind, CJ put a hand on my shoulder. “Should we reset?”

  I exhaled a huge, incredulous gust of air. “Sorry. It’s a lot.”

  “You really are a virgin, aren’t you?”

  “Well …” I said, not meeting his eye.

  He cackled. “I knew it! You’re not that naive. No one is.”

  “My only times were with these two guys. These straight guys from school. Athletes. Napoleon is basketball. Lucas is football.”

  CJ stopped walking. I turned. He looked stunned. Then he shoved me playfully. “What?”

  I blushed and crossed my arms over my chest. “Yeah. I mean. That’s what I have available to me.”

  He put his head in his hands dramatically. “I bow to you! How did you? I mean, older guys, for sure. They all want it, so it’s easy. But straight guys, athletes, our age? That’s the trifecta! Wow.”

  For the first time since I’d met CJ, I felt like I had the upper hand. Somehow, I didn’t love the feeling.

  “Yeah, well, it’s not great,” I explained. “No kissing. They just, you know. Do it.”

  “Do WHAT? Micah! Tell me all!”

  “Stop it!” I yelled right in the middle of the street. People turned their heads and looked. I lowered my voice. “Jesus. This is a date, right? Why are we talking about having sex with other people?”

  He smiled. “Oh, you’re young. You’ll learn.”

  Part of me cried inside when he said that. Because I didn’t want to learn. And I did. It was all so confusing.

  Without any definitive plan, we reluctantly decided to see a movie instead of going to dinner. The Princess Bride was playing, and while there was a good-sized crowd, we nabbed a couple seats in the back row. I bought the tickets, and in lieu of dinner, CJ got us hot dogs with all the fixings, the biggest tub of popcorn, Pepsis, and Whoppers. I had no idea how he had the money for all of it. He’d definitely spent more than I had paid for the tickets.

  Before the previews came on, CJ turned and whispered in my ear, “I’m sorry. I suck at dating. I want to be better. Reset?”

  I turned to him. “Yeah, I’m not so good, either. Reset.”

  He smiled ruefully. “You’re perfect. I’m the problem here.”

  I stuffed my hot dog in my mouth, so I’d have something to do with my hands and an alibi for not replying. Ketchup squirted onto my green Lacoste shirt, and I groaned. He gently laughed and squeezed my shoulder.

  “Bless your heart,” he said.

  I wiped up the ketchup with a napkin, knowing that a stain was unavoidable. I shrugged and chewed.

  That was when I realized: onions.

  I hadn’t been on a lot of dates, but I could hear Deena’s voice in my head, admonishing me. Three dating don’ts: wine coolers, burritos, and onions. The first, she said, was just tacky. The last two were dangerous.

  I blotted the sides of my mouth. Once I was done chewing, I put my hand in front of my mouth and inhaled my own breath. Eek.

  CJ caught me doing this and smirked.

  “Yeah,” I said, my mouth still behind my hand. “Rookie mistake. I guess onions are not the ideal date food, huh?”

  CJ smiled and sucked in his cheekbones.

  “Drink your Pepsi,” he said. “You’ll taste like the choice of a new generation by the time the movie’s through.”

  Man, was he cute.

  * * *

  The movie was funny and entertaining, and the best part was about halfway through, when CJ put the side of his left pinkie against my leg. My whole body trembled. I hoped he didn’t notice. I gingerly snaked my hand down and interweaved our pinkies, and in that way, we held hands. It was unimaginably nice, and I began to think that maybe I could get past the weird conversation stuff from earlier. Maybe.

  We were in far better spirits when we left, having just spent a couple of hours laughing together, eating popcorn, and holding hands, which would be the real trifecta for me.

  “Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya,” CJ stated, imitating Mandy Patinkin’s character. “You killed my father. Prepare to die!” The character says the line like ten times in the movie.

  I laughed.

  We crossed Broadway, stopping in the median when the light changed. A homeless man was asleep on the bench, covered by a ratty green jacket. “Although with me, it would be more like, ‘Hello, my name is CJ Gorman. You killed my stepfather. Thank you.’ ”

  I laughed again. “Not your favorite?”

  “Understatement. And the funny thing is, he kind of is my favorite. You know when someone is the best and the worst?”

  I didn’t, but I nodded. I wondered what CJ would think of my conventional, upper-middle-class, Jewish family. He’d probably roll his eyes and never talk to me again. I prayed he wouldn’t ask.

  “Is he mean to you? Like, does he hit you?”

  CJ stopped suddenly on Eighty-Fifth Street and put his hands on his hips. “Micah. Did you just ask me if my stepfather beats me? No! He’s … stringent. That’s all. God.”

  We started walking again. A drunk couple, a man and a woman, were approaching. The woman looked at us, pointed, and whispered something in the man’s ear. He cracked up. CJ gave them the middle finger.

  “Breeders!” he yelled out.

  “Be careful!” I said. “I don’t want a repeat of what happened after the Tunnel, please.”

  He snorted. “Yeah. Not concerned. You could probably take the woman, and I know I could take the man. Take him. I’d have him naked in under an hour.”

  I shot him a look.

  “Right, right,” he said. “No sex with strangers. God, Micah. You’re like my mother.”

  We wandered to Riverside Park, which was definitely not a place I went at night. But then again, I didn’t go anywhere at night, unless Deena took me there. I decided to loosen up for once in my life and trust CJ.

  The wine cooler he bought me at a bodega helped some. Yes, I was now two out of three on Deena’s Dating Don’ts, and I didn’t care. Mine was strawberry, and even though it was a little warm, the fizz felt good going down.

  “So every time I go out with you I wind up either on a dangerous street or in a park, late at night.”

  “And your point is?” CJ said. The streetlamps were on and illuminated the path that led to the river.

  He took us down this rickety stone staircase that looked like the kind of place where the Son of Sam hung out when he was feeling lazy. We passed several sleeping homeless people, and soon we were wending our way around this rotunda with a stone fountain that wasn’t working. Cars whizzed by on the West Side Highway to our west, and just to the south of us, cars exited the highway onto Seventy-Ninth Street. CJ jumped up onto the stone rotunda, put his arms out wide like he was a tightrope walker, and I followed and did the same. My heartbeat sped as he led me under a deserted tunnel that led to the boat basin.

  “You’re really not afraid of anything, are you?” I asked, a bit envious.

  He lightly chuckled. “I’m constantly afraid,” he said. “Almost exclusively. Not being afraid and not giving a fuck are two different things.”

  I didn’t know what to make of that. We walked up the narrow path along the Hudson River, where the streetlamps were mostly out. The moon over the Hudson was the only light that kept things from being pitch dark.

  The part of me that was my mother’s son was by now all jitters. This is where I’ll die, the voice in my head said. They’ll find me here, and I guess that’s how I’ll come out? Murdered next to a boy in a T-shirt with a pink triangle?

  “Where did you get ‘Silence Equals Death’ from?” I asked.

  I could hear him shaking his head in amazement. “Did you grow up in a cave?”

  “I grew up with Ira and Dalia Strauss as parents. Until, well, about six months ago, there wasn’t a single moment my mom didn’t know where I was.”

  He sighed. “Sounds kinda nice, actually.”

  “Really? I figured you’d hate that.”

  “Yeah. Probably. But it would be nice to know they cared. Someday I’ll tell you about the Italian tourist story. Not tonight, of course, as I’ve been decreed to not mention any other people in any sort of relational or sexual way, which significantly limits my ability to tell stories, by the way.”

  “Sorry about that. Maybe you’ll get a waiver later. We’ll see.”

  He laughed. “So they pretty much overprotect you?”

  “They finally decided to loosen the reins this past summer, but only a little. I was doing delivery for a video rental place on Broadway and then got the ushering gig, and I guess they decided they could trust me. Oops.”

  “Oops?”

  “Well, here I am, in Riverside Park at a very late hour with a boy who is obviously trouble.”

  We stopped walking and faced each other. CJ’s cheekbones were lit by the moon and I could see strands of his hair across his forehead. I wanted his lips. I wanted to feel his lips against mine, and to get to that place again where everything faded away and there wasn’t any wall, anything between us. No words, no sounds, no jokes. Just us.

  “ ‘Silence Equals Death’ is from a new group called ACT UP. It means that unless we stand up for ourselves and show ourselves, we’re as good as dead. It means that Ronald Reagan could give two fucks about whether some faggot dies of a disease. The straights love him, and he quite literally doesn’t care if we all die. We need to not be silent. We must stand up and be counted.”

  He was looking in my eyes. I could see them just a little, and they looked like he was in charge. Like he knew what he was doing.

  He reached down and squeezed my groin.

  “There are abandoned train tracks,” he whispered, and he motioned with his head to a place behind me.

  “Oh,” I said. The silliest, most unsophisticated word, that. But what did a person say in this situation? I couldn’t come up with anything that didn’t sound Dalia-ish. Careful? We’ll get caught? What if someone mugs us?

  So I said, again, “Oh.”

  “Wanna?” he asked softly.

  I was picturing a bed. I was picturing music, maybe that Wham! song. Turn a different corner and we never would have met. This was big for me. I got the feeling that for CJ, it maybe wasn’t. But for me? This was everything.

  “Could we go to your place?” I asked.

  He looked to the side and quietly laughed. “It’s a loft. I sleep in the main room. Like, you get off the elevator, open the door, and bam! My bed.”

  “Weird,” I said.

  “Yours is out, I guess?”

  “Uh, yeah.”

  “Our choices are limited,” he said. “C’mon.”

  I think that kind of did it. The tone of his voice, placating and sexy.

  “Okay,” I said. “If I get killed, tell my mom I love her.”

  “Will do,” he said. “If I die, tell my stepdad it’s his fault.”

  “Do you have condoms?”

  “Yes, Mother.”

  We walked hand in hand toward what appeared to be a beige brick wall, but as we approached, I could see a crevice. I had no idea how CJ knew. But he got us there.

  We went inside and it went from dark to darkest. My pulse throbbed and my brain spun and I grabbed his hand tighter. I could feel myself unable to breathe, and when I did inhale, it smelled dank and slightly sour. I grimaced.

  Once all the way inside, and once my heart stopped tripping over itself, I felt his breath on my ear.

  “My mouth has been declared illegal in three states,” he said, a disembodied voice. I got my mouth ready to reach for his in the darkness. I could hear him adjust then, and suddenly felt a hand on my belt. Two hands. I caught my breath.

  I needed to be near his lips. I wanted to connect with CJ that way, face-to-face, and I didn’t have the words to say no, but even if I did, I wouldn’t have said them. I would have said, if my heart could talk, Slow down. There’s time. I need to taste your lips on my lips. I need your nose pressed against mine. Even if we don’t open our mouths, because. Scary.

  I had never experienced any of what came next.

  The particular sensations below, as CJ rolled a condom onto my erection. How he then used his mouth on me. The warm sensation mingled with the cold of the setting, the fear swirling through the excitement, fear of where we were, fear of a virus.

  As if he were reading my mind, he whispered from down below, “Relax. You aren’t at risk here. Neither of us are.”