Adam Read online

  “Wait, there’s a cover?” said June.

  “It’s only ten dollars,” said Schuyler. “Anyway, Riley always lets me in for free.”

  “I thought you said I would be able to get in?” Adam whispered to Casey. “They’re checking IDs.”

  “They usually don’t do that,” said Boy Casey. “This place is getting too popular.”

  “June and I have fakes,” said Casey, “but we need something for Adam.”

  “Just come back out and give him yours after you’re stamped,” said Boy Casey. “You guys look enough alike. It’s just like you got a haircut.”

  “She’s a girl!” said Adam.

  “Half the guys in here have girl IDs,” said Schuyler.

  “You could use mine,” said Boy Casey, “but I’m taller than you.” Boy Casey was about a half-inch shorter than Adam.

  “He and Jimmy kinda look alike,” said June.

  “Watchoo say?” said Jimmy.

  Boy Casey grabbed Jimmy’s Orioles hat and put it on Adam. “Ahhh! Fuckin’ doppelgängers!” Jimmy barely cleared Adam’s shoulders.

  “Gimme that!” Jimmy jumped up and swiped the hat back.

  Boy Casey continued, “OK, so Jimmy’ll go in, get stamped, then bring his ID back out to Adam. Adam, you go hide behind that building.”

  Casey gave him an encouraging nod.

  “Uh, OK,” said Adam. He walked in the direction Boy Casey had pointed.

  Waiting in the alley between two buildings, Adam watched girls get on line for The Hole. Unlike the L Word party, a lot of them were hot. Like really hot. One girl noticed him staring, and Adam whipped his head around. He fixed his eyes intensely on the dumpster in front of him, as if he were waiting for someone to jump out. Maybe some of these girls were straight . . .

  Jimmy slapped his ID into Adam’s palm. “Wait ten minutes or I’ma kill you!” Then he turned around and ran back into The Hole.

  Adam looked down at the ID. It was Jimmy’s photo, but the name was “Francesca diSessa,” and she was a girl and she was twenty-six years old.

  ***

  Inside, The Hole was dark, pounding pop music, and clogged with cigarette smoke. It was also completely packed with girls. Most of them were butch lesbians, but there were a good number of straight-looking girls as well. The interior walls were the same as the outside ones, concrete with spray-painted tags everywhere. It was like someone had gutted a building, stuck a bar in the middle, and called it a club. And for whatever reason, this was the place to be.

  Adam scanned the club trying to get a glimpse of the Caseys, Schuyler, or Jimmy. He couldn’t find them anywhere. It was better this way, right? He was on his own. A man in a giant pulsing throng of women. Something had to happen. A butch dyke with giant breasts rammed into him.

  “Sorry, dude,” she said.

  A drink. First things first, he needed a drink. Whether he was going to meet a girl was yet to be determined, but at least he could get fucking wasted. Adam pushed his way through the hordes. The closer he got to the bar, the tighter everyone was packed in. He stood on his tiptoes to get a glimpse of the bartender. She looked like she was making five drinks at once, and everyone was leaned in toward her with money in their hands. Adam swiveled his shoulders, trying to squeeze in closer. He was almost to the edge of the bar when a lesbian wearing a beanie and a backpack shoved him out of the way.

  “Hey! Su Jin! Two whiskey sours for me and Ramona! You’re awesome!”

  Adam glared at the back of the girl’s head. Fuck this. He couldn’t even get a drink. He couldn’t even get a fucking drink. Fuck everything. His eyes fell down to a button pinned to the beanie girl’s backpack that read: THAT’S WHAT ‘ZE’ SAID.

  “Hey! What do you want?!”

  Adam looked to his left. A cute blond girl was smiling at him.

  “Uh . . . whiskey sour!” said Adam. He had to shout over the music.

  The girl laughed.

  Shit. He should have just said a beer. But what kind of beer? Heineken.

  The girl leaned over the lip of the bar, her low-cut shirt slinking down.

  “Suji! When you get a chance—one whiskey sour and a greyhound!”

  The girl turned back to Adam. “Bitches are bruxjkkxjkxjxk!”

  Adam smiled big. He had no idea what she’d just said. It was too loud. The girl got the drinks and handed Adam his. He took a swig, and then realized he hadn’t given the girl any money. Fuck. He was doing absolutely, every single minuscule thing wrong. He reached into his back pocket, took out his wallet, and tried to extract some bills with one hand while still holding his drink with the other. The whiskey splashed all over his T-shirt. The girl looked at him like he was crazy.

  “Just get the next one!” she shouted. “It’s not like I paid for these anyway!”

  “Thanks! Thanks a lot!” said Adam. Retarded, retarded, retarded.

  “I’m Calxnxknxkmsk!” she said.

  “What?!” said Adam.

  The girl leaned over and shouted into his ear, her lips brushing against his cheek. “I’m Calypso!”

  The whole right side of Adam’s face and neck tingled from where she had touched it. Calypso. He couldn’t explain it, but all of a sudden, he felt 100 Percent in Love. The girl he’d imagined on the plane had probably really had blond hair and he’d just misinterpreted it.

  “I’m Adam!” he shouted back.

  Adam and Calypso moved to the back of the room, where it was slightly less crowded and easier to talk. There were ratty couches strewn about the place and couples making out all over them. Calypso swayed as she drank. Adam had the impression she’d had several already.

  “So do you, uh, you come here often?” said Adam. Jesus fucking Christ.

  Calypso burst out laughing. “You’re hilarious. Wow. Are you a Sagittarius or something?”

  Adam was a Virgo, but he didn’t want to disappoint her so he just nodded yes.

  Calypso grinned and rolled her eyes. “Thought so. Always the comedians . . . but you guys are awesome in bed.”

  Adam blushed and downed the rest of his drink, ice and all.

  Calypso continued, “My ex-boyfriend was a Sag. Cubs is gonna kill me when she finds out I spent all night talking to a Sag. Ha-ha! No pressure.”

  Ex-boyfriend? Was Calypso straight? Was this actually happening?

  “Uh, so . . . what sign are you?” said Adam.

  “Leo,” said Calypso, smug. “Triple Leo!” She shook her long beaded necklace in Adam’s face.

  Adam wanted another drink but was scared that if he went to get one, Calypso wouldn’t be there when he got back.

  “Should we . . . go get some more drinks?” he asked.

  “Thanks! Another greyhound!” She smiled.

  Look, he told himself. If this is destiny, she will be there when you get back. She will be there, she just will.

  “Cool, be right back,” he said. Adam turned around and barged his way through the crowd. He was on a mission now. He needed to get these drinks and get them fast. No bullshit.

  Adam got to the bar and elbowed his way to the front, pushing two girls out of the way. They barely seemed to notice.

  “Two greyhounds!” he shouted. The bartender didn’t hear him. “Two greyhounds!” he screamed. He didn’t give a shit if he looked lame—he was getting these drinks. The bartender slammed two frothy yellow drinks in front of him.

  “Fourteen bucks.”

  Adam slammed down a twenty, grabbed the drinks, and whipped around to plow back to Calypso. Adrenaline was rushing through him. He felt cool, with purpose. He had a girl waiting, and he was bringing her a drink.

  “Took you long enough,” said Calypso, accepting her drink. “I almost got roped into a threesome.” She jerked her head toward one of the couches where two people were going at it. Adam looked a little closer and saw that one of the people was Boy Casey. The other was not his sister. He took a huge swallow of his drink. He didn’t know how it was possible that alcohol made everythi
ng seem like not a big deal, but it just did.

  “You’re so over this place,” Calypso said, shaking her head at Adam. “You’re totally over it.”

  Adam tried to look nonchalant.

  “I came here with my friend Cubs, but she ditched me for some girl. Whatever, we’ll totally laugh about it tomorrow. We always do . . .”

  Adam nodded, sipping his drink.

  “It’s my birthday,” said Calypso.

  “Happy birthday,” said Adam.

  “Big Three-O,” said Calypso. “This is the year I really get my poetry going.”

  “Cool,” said Adam.

  “So, like, what’s your deal? What do you do?”

  Adam nodded, pretending not to have understood her.

  Calypso took a big gulp of her drink. “Can I tell you a secret?”

  Adam took a big gulp of his drink, too. “Uh-huh.”

  Calypso put her hands on Adam’s shoulders and leaned in. Her voice was loud in his ear. “I want to be a star.”

  Adam nodded again, not sure how to respond.

  “You’re so cute,” she said, backing up, looking him over. “Your little boxers sticking out . . .”

  Adam looked down to where his shirt had ridden up on his pants a little.

  Then he realized Calypso was kissing him. Really kissing him. Her tongue was in his mouth, and her hand was tugging at the side of his T-shirt, pulling him closer. He had a full-on erection and swiveled a little, embarrassed she would feel it. He tried to think about how he was kissing her back. He had never done this—what were you supposed to do? Were you supposed to move your tongue in any particular way? A thing Brad had once said to him popped into his head. “And then I fucked her mouth with my tongue, you know?” He tried moving his tongue in and out. Calypso stopped the kissing and looked at him.

  “You are fucking hot,” she said.

  Calypso grabbed Adam’s hand and pulled him into the crowd. “We need to take this shit to the bathroom.”

  The two of them swerved and pushed through the dancing, sweaty mass, making their way to the other end of the club where the bathroom was. Adam saw Jimmy dancing with an extremely tall girl, his head bobbing in front of her breasts. Jimmy noticed Adam, saw that he was with Calypso, and gave him an “Aww yeah!” grin. He pointed his finger out at Adam while continuing to bounce up and down to the music.

  “Shit!” said Calypso, dropping Adam’s hand. “It’s my ex-girlfriend.”

  “Oh, uh . . .” said Adam.

  “You know what? Fuck that. She canjnjkjkjkjkjkj.” Calypso linked arms tightly with Adam and continued pulling him along.

  They got to the front of the club where the bathroom was.

  “Yes! No line,” said Calypso. She smiled at Adam. “It was meant to be.”

  They went into the bathroom, and Calypso locked the door. Bright fluorescent light and a muffled quiet. The walls were covered in frenzied, colorful writing, and the toilet was plugged to the top with yellow toilet paper and bloody tampons. Calypso backed into the corner and shot Adam a coy look. He was suddenly really nervous. It was just like in Kelsey Winslow’s bedroom. He was supposed to make a move, but he felt paralyzed. His body felt alien, as if it weren’t supposed to touch anything. Like if he touched her, some blaring alarm would go off. Everyone in the club would evacuate.

  He heard Kelsey Winslow’s voice in his head, “I need guys to be more aggressive.” Calypso was staring at him, thinking the same thing.

  “Awww, you’re shy,” said Calypso. “That’s soooo cute.” She reached out and tugged the bottom of Adam’s shirt, pulling him close to her.

  “Don’t worry,” she said, speaking softly in his ear, “I like guys like you.” Her lips moved across his face. “I like guys like you a lot.” She flattened her hand out onto his chest and slid across, stopping on his nipple. Her middle finger made a slow little circle around it. Adam’s hard-on was back in full effect. They started kissing again, and this time Adam wasn’t nervous. All he was, was one giant human-shaped concentration of pleasure. He fucking loved being alive.

  Calypso took his hands and put them under her shirt. “My body is for you,” she said. He moved his hands all over her smooth round breasts and under her bra, where the nipples were hard. He felt about five seconds from coming in his pants. Calypso grinded into him. “You like that?” she said.

  “Uh-huh,” said Adam. His mind was mush. He didn’t even know where he was anymore.

  “Oh god, you’re packing,” said Calypso. “That is so fucking hot.”

  Packing? Adam didn’t know what she was talking about and didn’t care. He pushed in closer, squeezing her tits as his tongue shoved into her mouth.

  “I want you to fuck me right here,” she said. “Feel how wet I am?” She grabbed his hand and plunged it down her jeans. Adam didn’t know what he was feeling—it was wet, it was soft. He suddenly felt kind of terrified.

  “Uh, I . . .” he said.

  “Come on,” she said. “Fuck me with that dick of yours.”

  OK, wait, he needed to think. Was this actually happening? Was he going to have sex? Shouldn’t they use a condom? You’re supposed to use a condom. Fuck the condom.

  “I think I have a condom,” he said, reaching for his wallet. Was he ready to have sex? Yes! No. Should he just do it?

  “A condom?” Calypso laughed. “What, it’s dirty? You already fucked another girl tonight?”

  “No!” said Adam.

  “Then let’s just do it—you didn’t come here packing unless you wanted to use it. Don’t be shy. I love tranny cock.”

  Tranny cock. Packing. What Boy Casey had said to Casey that night. “I’m packing.” A fake dick. Calypso thought Adam was trans. He had to get out of there.

  “I—I have to go,” said Adam.

  “What?” said Calypso.

  “My sister, she’s . . . waiting.” Adam pulled his phone out of his pocket. He did have a text from Casey: Where r u?

  “She texted me. She’s drunk. I have to go.”

  Adam backed out of the bathroom into the throbbing dark club. He pushed his way through the dancing mob. Where the fuck was everyone? He felt like he was going to cry. June appeared in front of him. She shouted something, but he couldn’t understand her.

  “What?!” he shouted back. “Where’s Casey?!”

  June grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the exit. “We’ve been looking for you!” she said.

  They walked out of the club, and Adam saw Casey sitting hunched on the curb, her head in her knees. She looked up at Adam and June, her cheeks soaked and flushed from crying.

  “Let’s go,” she said. “Let’s just take a fucking cab home.” She stood up and stumbled a little, catching her balance on a parked car. She really was drunk.

  June hailed a cab, and the three of them piled into the back seat. The cab was air-conditioned, and the black leather seats felt smooth and cool.

  “Bushwick,” said June. “Scholes between Humboldt and Bushwick Avenue.”

  The driver pulled into traffic. Casey was slumped against the window, Adam was in the middle, and June stared out the other window. Adam was surprised June wasn’t consoling Casey as usual. Nobody talked. As they drove over the bridge, back to Brooklyn, the lights from the city spread out on all sides around them. Adam had never seen this view before, and for the first time, New York looked as he had always imagined it would.

  Casey started giggling to herself. It started out quiet, but then got louder, mixed in with drunken hiccups.

  “All I have to do is stay black and die,” she said.

  Adam and June exchanged a look.

  “What?” said Adam.

  Casey giggled more, trying to catch her breath.

  “All I have to do is stay black and die. At camp today, this kid Christine didn’t want to go to Drama Group, and I kept saying, ‘Christine, you have to go to Drama Group,’ and she was like, ‘No, I don’t. All I have to do is stay black and die.’” Casey started hiccu
pping again. She turned her head and stared back out the window. “I didn’t really know what to say to that.”

  Back at the apartment, Adam was relieved to see that Ethan’s door was closed and his light was out. Half of him wanted to burst in there and tell Ethan everything that had happened, but for some reason he couldn’t. He wasn’t sure why, but it just seemed like what happened with Calypso was something he shouldn’t tell anyone. He would tell Brad the making-out part and maybe Ethan that part, too. But the other part, no one.

  June went into her room and shut the door. Had she and Casey had a fight? What could they possibly fight about? June just did everything Casey wanted and complimented her all the time. June being mad at Casey was a little scary. Like nothing was dependable in this world. If June could be mad at Casey, god knows what else could happen.

  Casey was splayed on her mattress with her laptop.

  “Fucking asshole!” she said, to the screen.

  Adam paused halfway to his room, unsure if Casey wanted a response.

  Casey looked over at him. “What are you doing?” she said.

  “Nothing.”

  “Come here.”

  Adam walked into her room and sat down on the floor.

  “They’re already friends on Facebook,” said Casey. “They couldn’t wait five fucking seconds! Oh no! Had to immediately go home and make sure the whole world knows they fucked at The Hole tonight. I mean, people need to know. This is serious business.”

  “Casey sucks,” said Adam.

  “No . . .” said Casey, her tone changing, recalibrating itself into mature. “It’s complicated. I mean . . . it’s not like we were exclusive.”

  “You guys were dating,” said Adam. “He sucks.”

  “It’s just, it’s kind of a trans thing, though,” she said. “He’s new to his body, his sexuality. As an emerging trans person, he needs to be free to explore sexual experiences now that he’s not constricted by his assigned gender.”

  Casey was doing that thing where she repeats something someone else told her and it sounds totally weird coming out of her mouth.

  “I guess,” said Adam. He’d learned that anything that had anything to do with “being trans” was not a thing you questioned.