It's Kind of a Funny Story

I didn’t mean to; I meant to turn her around and put her on my bed, but she happened to be in front of me and I couldn’t switch directions in mid-grab. I cover her with my thin body and kiss her upper lip first, encase it in my lips, then do the lower one, then try to do them both at once, only that doesn’t really work, it’s like trying to pull the lips off her head, and she laughs, which gives me her beautiful smile to kiss, the hard white teeth—I don’t mind—and then I use my tongue the way I’ve seen in movies and put my hands on her soldier outfit and feel what I don’t have and have wanted for years pressing back at me, taut and yielding at the same time. Two of them.

“Mmmmmm,” Nia mmmmmms, putting her small hands on the back of my head. She feels my hair; I shake against her. I can’t believe how good it feels. This is how good it feels? Why the hell did I ever get depressed?

I remember what Aaron said about the inside of a girl’s cheek feeling like another place and I lick the insides of hers. She shivers; she likes it; it’s like Aaron said: she likes sex; her tongue becomes a jittery dart flicking in and out of my mouth. I feel the ring—a little metal bubble, something to add texture, foreign and dirty. Forget it. Let’s do it. I reach up to the buttons on her outfit. My eyes are closed, because if I open them I think I might get a little too excited and ruin my pants, and Mom didn’t bring me any pants.

Darn, the button I’m grabbing is in the middle. Up one. No. That’s not it. One more.

“God.” she pulls away. “I always wanted to hook up in a hospital.”

“What?” I look up at her chin. I’m still on top of her on Muqtada’s bed, my legs sticking way off, almost hitting my bed.

“This was totally on my checklist.” She looks down. “Me and Aaron never did anything like this.”

That’s a body blow to my whole body: the lower half that wanted this and the upper half that warned me about it. I can’t think what to say: Please don’t compare me to Aaron? Please don’t mention Aaron? What checklist? So I say: “Uh . . . um . . .”

“Sex!” I hear from the doorway.

It’s Muqtada.

“Sex! Sex in my bed! Children make sex in my bed!” He runs over to us; I jump off Nia and hold my hands up, thinking he’s going to hit me, but he grabs me and holds me close to his square smelly body and carries me like a girder to the corner of the room.

“Um, Muqtada—”

“Craig, who is that?” Nia yells.

“I live here! You terrible girl corrupt my friend!” Muqtada puts me down, turns and stands with his arms crossed at Nia, guarding me. “You leave!” He points at the open door.

“There’s no door?!” Nia peers at it. On some kind of incredible girl-time, she’s gotten up, smoothed out her outfit, and collected her purse from near Muqtada’s pillow. She already has her cell phone out; it’s blinking at her side. She’s gesturing at me with it.

“There’s a door, yeah,” I say, standing on tiptoes to talk over Muqtada’s shoulder. “We just didn’t close it—”

“Don’t talk to her!” Muqtada turns and shakes his finger at me. “She try and make sex in my bed!”

“It wasn’t just me, okay?” Nia bends her face in at him. He turns back. “In case you didn’t notice, Craig was on top of me. And we weren’t going to have sex.”

“Woman is temptress. My wife leave me. I know.”

“Craig, I’m outta here.”

“Uh, okay!” I answer into Muqtada’s back. “Ah—” I try and think how to sum it up. “I like making out with you . . . but I don’t really like you as a person. . . .”

“Yeah, same here,” says Nia.

“What is going on in here?” It’s Smitty. He shadows the door. “Muqtada, what are you doing? And excuse me, young lady?”

“I was just leaving,” Nia says.

“You’re the visitor for Craig, right?”

“Not anymore.”

“What happened in here?”

“Nothing,” says Muqtada. “Everything fine.” He steps aside, turns, and gives me what I guess he thinks is a wink through his glasses.

“Yeah, absolutely.” I catch on. “Muqtada just came in and was surprised to see two people in the room.”

“Well, he should be,” says Smitty, “because you’re not supposed to have visitors in your room. Don’t let it happen again, okay?”

“No problem.”

“Yeah, because you won’t be seeing me again,” says Nia, and Smitty gives her a disbelieving look as she walks away from him, stomping down the hall, slamming her shoes with each step. He shrugs at us.

“All right,” he says to her back. “Sign out on your way out, miss.”

“Craig, what kind of girl is going to put up with this . . . crap?” Nia turns around, spreads her arms, and gestures to the hall as if she owns it while she backs away.

“Be quiet, Doomba!” yells President Armelio from somewhere. She turns back around and doesn’t give any more looks back.

“Huh,” Smitty says. “Lovely girl. Everything cool, guys?”

We nod like kindergartners. “Yes.”

“Don’t let anything like that happen again, Craig.”

“I won’t.”

“Otherwise you’ll be here a long time.” Smitty walks away from the door; Muqtada waits a few moments and then turns to me.