me
out
of
here.
Someone.
Please.
t hursday morning, I am grateful to be distracted by a new crop of seniors. Hugh is Monday/Tuesday gym. These guys are Thurs-day/Friday. I feel like it's Hanukkah—the new day brings new presents to unwrap.
Two guys come in early and steal a kiss inside a toilet stall, still wearing all their clothes. Then they head to different sides of the locker room and change for gym like nothing happened.
Like they're straight.
More filter in, and they change slowly, sluggishly. A couple of them wear their gym shorts to school and carry their jeans in their backpacks. Lots of them have coffee cups or soda cans, and when they go into class they leave them sitting on the sinks and benches, as if they'll only be gone for a minute.
I do like looking at them.
I do, I do.
Have I become a bad person, then?
I know I'd think badly of a guy for going to strip clubs or reading pervy magazines or spying on girls in the locker room. I'd think he was objectifying women or violating people's privacy.
But I'm doing it myself—the spying part—and I fully enjoy it.
And would it still be wrong if the guys knew about it and agreed to it—like if they were models or in a video?
Could I really be the type of girl who would buy a dirty video?
I don't know. I'm so full of hormones, anything seems possible.
I used to think beauty was something you could put your finger on. Of course, I knew it changed according to fashion—like long ago people used to prefer weak chins and rosebud mouths on women, whereas now we like strong jaws and wide grins; or good-looking men used to have big fuzzy sideburns that grew all the way down across their cheeks, and now that kind of facial hair looks mangy.
I know the svelte women we admire these days would have been considered scrawny things with no figures in previous centuries. But even so, I still thought: the good-looking people are the good-looking people. They are the ones people want to date, because good looks are what make people attractive. If a person has flaws, his rating goes down. Attractive is attractive is attractive.
And it turns out that's not so. Like what about Hugh? I think he's sexier now than I did when I'd only seen him with his clothes on—even though his clothes hide his bad skin and objectively there are problems with his body. He's sexy naked because he walks around in his argyle socks, drinking coffee. He's comfortable in himself.
Shane, on the other hand, looks great and has a gorgeous chest, but somehow seems hard and untouchable—like you're not really looking at him, but at a coat of armor he wears to keep people away. And Carlo looks better undressed than dressed, because his clothes are geeky. But his relatively nice body stilldoesn't do anything for me. He's got no milkshake—or whatever the equivalent is in boys.
Girls' magazines are always saying “confidence is the sexiest thing of all”—but even though that's kind of true for Hugh, Titus is the opposite. It's not his confidence that makes him sexy. He hasn't got any.
When he's got his clothes off, he seems even more naked than anyone else.
At the end of African dance, Xavier and Carlo don't come in right away. The drumbeats have stopped, but they're staying inside the gym for some reason.
Gunther arrives—first in his class as usual. He must have his third period in the sculpture studio right next door. He opens his minilocker and gets his sneakers, then sits down on a bench and starts to change.
I hear the voice of the drummer before I see him. He has a lilt—not African but Jamaican. He plays the bongos for the dance class, and he must arrive at the gym through the teachers' offices, because I've never seen him before. When he enters, Xavier and Carlo trailing behind him, I can see he's short, with shiny dark skin and dreads. Not dressed like a teacher—tan cords and a faded blue T-shirt. He's sweating a bit from playing the drums for so long.
“Is that the guy?” he
out
of
here.
Someone.
Please.
t hursday morning, I am grateful to be distracted by a new crop of seniors. Hugh is Monday/Tuesday gym. These guys are Thurs-day/Friday. I feel like it's Hanukkah—the new day brings new presents to unwrap.
Two guys come in early and steal a kiss inside a toilet stall, still wearing all their clothes. Then they head to different sides of the locker room and change for gym like nothing happened.
Like they're straight.
More filter in, and they change slowly, sluggishly. A couple of them wear their gym shorts to school and carry their jeans in their backpacks. Lots of them have coffee cups or soda cans, and when they go into class they leave them sitting on the sinks and benches, as if they'll only be gone for a minute.
I do like looking at them.
I do, I do.
Have I become a bad person, then?
I know I'd think badly of a guy for going to strip clubs or reading pervy magazines or spying on girls in the locker room. I'd think he was objectifying women or violating people's privacy.
But I'm doing it myself—the spying part—and I fully enjoy it.
And would it still be wrong if the guys knew about it and agreed to it—like if they were models or in a video?
Could I really be the type of girl who would buy a dirty video?
I don't know. I'm so full of hormones, anything seems possible.
I used to think beauty was something you could put your finger on. Of course, I knew it changed according to fashion—like long ago people used to prefer weak chins and rosebud mouths on women, whereas now we like strong jaws and wide grins; or good-looking men used to have big fuzzy sideburns that grew all the way down across their cheeks, and now that kind of facial hair looks mangy.
I know the svelte women we admire these days would have been considered scrawny things with no figures in previous centuries. But even so, I still thought: the good-looking people are the good-looking people. They are the ones people want to date, because good looks are what make people attractive. If a person has flaws, his rating goes down. Attractive is attractive is attractive.
And it turns out that's not so. Like what about Hugh? I think he's sexier now than I did when I'd only seen him with his clothes on—even though his clothes hide his bad skin and objectively there are problems with his body. He's sexy naked because he walks around in his argyle socks, drinking coffee. He's comfortable in himself.
Shane, on the other hand, looks great and has a gorgeous chest, but somehow seems hard and untouchable—like you're not really looking at him, but at a coat of armor he wears to keep people away. And Carlo looks better undressed than dressed, because his clothes are geeky. But his relatively nice body stilldoesn't do anything for me. He's got no milkshake—or whatever the equivalent is in boys.
Girls' magazines are always saying “confidence is the sexiest thing of all”—but even though that's kind of true for Hugh, Titus is the opposite. It's not his confidence that makes him sexy. He hasn't got any.
When he's got his clothes off, he seems even more naked than anyone else.
At the end of African dance, Xavier and Carlo don't come in right away. The drumbeats have stopped, but they're staying inside the gym for some reason.
Gunther arrives—first in his class as usual. He must have his third period in the sculpture studio right next door. He opens his minilocker and gets his sneakers, then sits down on a bench and starts to change.
I hear the voice of the drummer before I see him. He has a lilt—not African but Jamaican. He plays the bongos for the dance class, and he must arrive at the gym through the teachers' offices, because I've never seen him before. When he enters, Xavier and Carlo trailing behind him, I can see he's short, with shiny dark skin and dreads. Not dressed like a teacher—tan cords and a faded blue T-shirt. He's sweating a bit from playing the drums for so long.
“Is that the guy?” he
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