The Work Is Innocent by Rafael Yglesias

didn’t want you to?” He had sensed Richard’s reluctance. John’s expression of shared pleasure had changed to tactful concern.
    “No!” Richard said, willing to admit anything else. “She was into it.” He giggled. He saw the look of pleasure and curiosity in John’s face and tried to think of a good lie.
    John ran his hands through his hair and tipped his chair backward. “What’s to be depressed about?”
    Richard was flustered. He saw how funny it was and decided there was no escape from being foolish. He said, “I wasn’t able to do it,” in quick choppy words.
    John seemed to fight embarrassment, but Richard couldn’t be sure. John scratched his beard and cleared his throat. Richard couldn’t stand that and he laughed in a high screeching tone. John’s eyes suddenly focused and said, “What—what do you mean?”
    He had to convince John he wasn’t a schmuck. “It’s hard to explain. I, uh, we had some grass and we necked for a while.” Richard was almost unable to say the words. “And then she suggested we go into her room.” John smiled. “So I—well, we got into bed and I had”—he laughed—“an erection. A big one.”
    John’s smile was becoming uncontrollable. He said, “That’s cool anyway. What’s the problem?” They laughed and John put on a serious look afterward.
    Richard imitated it. “Well, I jumped on top of her with no introduction and I couldn’t get in.” He said that quickly, his voice loud to bluff confidence.
    John cleared his throat and dragged on his cigarette. Richard knew he’d blown it. John slowly picked up his wine and took a sip. “That’s nothing. I mean, that’s not—it’s your first time. Stuff like that is normal.” He laughed but Richard didn’t. “I mean impotence isn’t—”
    “Impotence!” Richard was stunned. Impotence was for Tennessee Williams characters. “I don’t think, uh.”
    “It wasn’t that?”
    “You mean did I lose my erection? No, I don’t—I don’t know.” His voice cracked and he laughed helplessly.
    John shook his head no and said mildly, “I didn’t mean a classic case of impotence. I went through that. The first time I was scared shitless.”
    Richard looked at him hopefully. “Really?”
    “Sure.” He looked down at the drawings and brushed the back of his hand over them. “She didn’t help you out?”
    “No.” Richard groaned. “It would’ve helped.”
    “She just lay there? Yeah, that makes it worse.” John opened his knife and sharpened his pencil. “So that’s what’s been on your mind.”
    “I know. It’s so humiliating that I’m in this position. I mean, I should have been fucking for years.”
    John laughed and looked at him with the old closeness and pleasure. That cheered Richard up. John closed his knife with a snap and said, “We should all have been fucking for years.”
    Richard exaggerated his laughter, hoping to be happier. “I just feel that the rest of me has outgrown being a virgin and I’m stuck, unable to become blissfully ignorant and fuck without caring.” He reached for the bottle and filled his glass.
    “You should get drunk and find somebody. If you’re really wacko it’s a mess but at least you get it done.”
    They were quiet. John returned to his work and Richard looked at the wine in his glass. He was half drunk already and a moment ago he wanted to be blind, but now that seemed sick and he put his glass down in disgust.
    The next two weeks were as dull as Richard had feared. Even though they would be up drinking until five in the morning, Richard would always find John working upstairs. He would get up with a splitting headache at about one o’clock but John was up and around by nine-thirty. The afternoons were depressing—workmen banged all about the house putting in central heating. Richard had passed out one night, forgetting to draw the blinds, and he was appalled the following morning, when he opened his eyes into the stare of a workman outside