Excerpt: Mud

from my novel in progress: Call Me Mommy

Note: This belongs to the same series as my excerpts Trolley Problem (from book 1, Miyagi The Hard Way) and Sex Addiction (from book 3, Say You’re Sorry). It is the same Lucas in all of them, and the same Sam as is writing his own memoir of these events. This is from book 2. Both of the boys are 18 in this scene, and the narrator is 25.

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We’re walking down the concrete path of the park behind Sam’s building when it starts to rain. We impulsively seek shelter under the nearest tree, where we get trapped when the downpour just gets worse without seeming to lighten up any time soon. The park empties out, until it’s just the three of us standing there. The water comes down heavy and warm, but the tree does a good enough job keeping us dry. But the grass is turning into mud around us. And it’s boring. I’ve been scrolling my phone while Sam and Lucas talk about some video game they both play. I haven’t been listening. At least there’s no lightning threatening to evict us.

Then Sam taps my shoulder. I realise it’s been silent for a while. I give Sam my attention. He grins wide at me, like he has an idea. He lifts one leg and starts untying his shoe.

“You know,” he says, taking it off, “I hate getting my socks wet.”

And with that he puts one socked foot down into the mud. Splat. He places his shoe down next to him ceremoniously. Then does the same ritual with the other foot. Lift. Untie. Splat. Place.

“What are you doing?”

“I don’t want a romantic kiss in the rain,” Sam says, “that’s for romcoms and melodramas. What we have isn’t that.”

“What do we have?” I ask.

Sam raises his eyebrows mischievously, “a psychosexual thriller.”

I laugh.

Then he elbows Lucas, and says, “come, let’s wrestle.”

He steps out from under the tree and walks up to our closest puddle. Thick. Brown. Little tufts of grass sticking out of it.

“Wrestling in the rain, that’s romantic,” I comment sarcastically.

Lucas gives me a glance, then shrugs like fuck it, and follows Sam. He joins him in the puddle.

Sam stands expectantly, excitedly, “push me.”

“What?”

Sam shrugs, “push me.”

And Lucas does, shoves him, but Sam grabs his arms and brings him down with him. They hit the ground together — mud splashing up around them. Sam lands on his back, laughing. Lucas groans, half on top of him, trying to prop himself up.

“That all you got?” Sam goads.

Lucas presses him down with one hand. Sam wraps his arms around Lucas’ waist and spins them around, so he’s on top. Lucas lands with a thunk. Sam pins him with his body. Lucas brings his elbow in and slides his forearm up between them. He bends his knee, hooks Sam’s calf, and flips them around again. Their bodies roll sideways, legs tangled, arms grappling.

Their shirts soak with sweat and rain. The fabric clings to them, see-through and shapeless. Their wrestling is accompanied by a chorus of wet, sucking sounds. I’m still under the tree, dry, watching.

They roll again. Sam gets the upper hand for a second, then slips. They’re covered now, arms streaked with mud, hair plastered to their foreheads. They look ridiculous. They look young.

Lucas gets on top of Sam, sitting up, straddling him, pinning his wrists. Sam kicks, squirms, laughing, trying to roll them again, but there’s nowhere to go. The mud just eats it. Every movement gets absorbed. There’s no traction. Sam gives up and grins up at Lucas, his shirt already soaked through with wet dirt, clinging to his ribs.

“You always fucking win,” Sam says, panting.

“And you always lose,” Lucas mocks, also panting.

What a tableau. Lucas on top, flushed, dripping. Sam, under him, smiling like he’s six and scraped his knee on purpose. They’ve both got mud in their hair. They stay there, like that, for a moment, breathing in sync. Then Lucas climbs off him — red, wet, dirty, and giddy — and gets up. He offers Sam a hand to help him up, but I get an idea.

“No, Sam, don’t get up yet.”

He looks to me obediently, and waits on his knees.

“You lost,” I point out.

“Indeed I did.”

“Games need to have stakes, otherwise, what are you playing for? If you lose, you should have some kind of punishment.”

“Alright, well, come out here and punish me!” Sam says, cheerfully.

I walk out of the shelter of the tree and toward them. Sam smiles cheekily like a middle schooler who just heard his teacher curse. Lucas looks away uncomfortably, trapped as a pawn in this game Sam and I were always playing. The wrestling was always just a mechanism. Sam was rigged to lose.

“I guess, now you’re old enough now to facilitate your own subjugation.”

Woah. Big word for a bitch who didn’t go to uni. What was it my teachers always said in school? Something about how intelligent I was. Guess I am. Or maybe younger boys are just easy to manipulate.

But I didn’t do this. I look at Sam. This wasn’t my work. He came to me. He came to me, this time. He’s asking me to punish him. I’m the one going along with it. It’s how we show affection, I guess. In whatever this is that we share.

I stand above Sam.

He says, low, “will you accept my surrender?”

I think for a minute.

Then I say, “take a drink.”

“Of what?”

“The puddle.”

“Woah, man, no, don’t do that. “ Lucas looks at me then reaches out to Sam, “You don’t have to do that.”

I forgot about him. I think Sam did too. I put an arm in front of him, blocking him.

I lean and whisper, “he likes to play this game. Just go along with it.”

Lucas looks at me with stern, hesitant acceptance, then looks back down at Sam.

Sam just looks Lucas in the eyes with focus on his face. He looks to me. Then he leans forward, palms on the ground, and sticks his face into the puddle. I watch his throat move. Gulp. Gulp. Gulp. Jesus, I thought he’d maybe take a lick, like a cat. This little pervert’s a bigger freak than I could ever anticipate.

Screw the thought that this is ever something I’m doing to him. The boy’s doing this to me. He’s pulling me into his depravity. He came to me like this. Came to me, with something already very very broken in him.

It isn’t wrong to love someone so broken. That’s what I’m doing. This is love. To give. That’s what I’m doing. Giving him. Giving him what he wants from me. What he wants from me.

He lifts his face and leans back on his heels. He gasps for air, satisfied, mud dripping from his chin.

Lucas is grimacing in disgust, “dude…”

Sam just smiles, tongue running over his teeth. He doesn’t wipe his face, he wears it, letting the mud stain his face.

“Now I’m dirty,” he says, with a smile.

I understand in that moment what he’s getting off on. Humiliation. Degradation. Dirt. Being filthy next to something clean. Being unworthy, being lesser, and yet, being accepted. By me, that is. It’s metaphor, like all kinks are. He’s tainted by something disgusting, yet I deem him worthy to be mine. And he wants to be seen. To be seen, in his spoilt status, still by my side.

And Lucas is the witness. I look at Lucas. I can read his face. Sam isn’t his, not anymore. He knows this. He’s accepting it. He has no choice. Sam has chosen to give himself to me.

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I wake up when Sam gets up.

“Where are you going?” I ask half-asleep, kind of automatically, not out of any real curiosity.

“I feel nauseous,” he says, through a thick throat, “I’m going to get some water.”

Lucas isn’t in bed either, I notice. I hear the microwave spin in the kitchen, when Sam opens the bedroom door. Then I hear some chatter. Then I hear loud retching, almost like coughs. I check my phone. 02:04. I rub my eyes and get up, to spy on the boys in the kitchen. Like that first night. What a flashback.

Sam’s bent over the kitchen sink. He heaves, and heaves. Nothing comes. Then suddenly, all in one violent burst, a power-washer projectile of watery stomach acid ejects into the sink. Lucas is next to him, watching with alarm and worry. The microwave beeps. Whatever Lucas was heating up is done. I don’t think he cares anymore.

Sam catches his breath and braces himself against the counter, with a hand on the either side of the sink, sill hunched over. His sleeves are rolled up to his elbows. He’s panting.

Lucas, eyes wide, says, “Jesus, Sam.”

Sam spits into the sink and groans. He tries to turn the faucet on and misses the handle three times.

“Don’t,” he says in a raspy voice, then rinses his mouth under the faucet. Then he throws up again, in small, wet coughs.

“Fuck,” he says, in between catching his breath, “Fuck. Fuck me—”

“Was it the puddle?” Lucas asks, his voice soft with care. Sam doesn’t answer. He turns the tap on again, takes a handful of water, and rinses his mouth. Gurgles. Spits. Then he grabs a dish sponge, pours some dish soap into the basin, and starts scrubbing. Lucas puts his hands in his pockets, watching Sam.

“You’re gonna get sick,” Lucas says, eventually. Right as I was about to get bored and go to bed.

“I’m already sick,” Sam says tiredly.

He stops scrubbing. Sighs. Closes his eyes.

Then continues, “after I drank it, I thought, she’s inside me now.“

Lucas blinks.

“You’re vomiting into the sink.”

“Yeah,” Sam mutters, and goes back to scrubbing, “and I’m hoping she takes it.”

He rinses his hands. Lucas turns to the microwave, finally opening it.

“Takes what?” He asks, taking out a plate of garlic bread.

“Oh, god, get that away from me,” Sam says, flinching, before answering, “the gift.”

“What gift?” Lucas says, placing the plate on the far end of the counter from Sam. He tears off a square of paper towel and hands it to Sam. Sam shrugs, taking it.

“Me.”

Lucas just looks at Sam for a moment. Then he speaks up.

“You don’t have to do this,” he says carefully.

“I’m not doing anything.”

“Jesus, Sam, do you hear yourself? You degrade yourself for her and act like it’s some fucked up love language.”

“Why does it bother you?”

“Because you’re losing yourself, Sam. Because it’s not you.“

“I’m doing this because I want to. You think I don’t know what this is?”

“I think you think if you sink low enough for her, she’ll finally upgrade you.”

“She did. She chose me. I’m special. I’m not like you. What we have it’s… it’s different. Special. Real.”

Lucas looks like he’s about to cry.

“She’s killing you, Sam.”

Sam looks at Lukas silently. He says nothing.

“And I can’t stop watching it,” Lucas whispers.

More silence. Sam is silent. I can’t tell what he’s thinking. He’s right about one thing, he is special. When I first met him, I thought he was another run-of-the-mill easy case. Easy to claim, easy to break. But what’s going on in that distorted mind of his is beyond any psychic’s guess.

“I love you,” Lucas says, flat, sounding broken.

Sam sighs.

“I know.”

He pulls Lucas in for a hug.

“I love you, too.”

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