Read Online Spanking Shakespeare by Jake Wizner - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Jake Wizner
Ads: Link
know better than to press her.
Between thinking about Charlotte, playing boyfriend to Celeste, trying to finish my poem, arguing with my parents about college applications, and working on my memoir, I somehow manage to miss the moment when Neil and Katie move from being friends to being friends with benefits.
“Is something up with you and Katie?” I ask Neil as we walk out of school one day to catch the bus home.
Neil seems a bit uncomfortable. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. You guys have just been acting a little weird lately.”
Neil doesn’t answer, and I feel a pit in my stomach.
“Tell me you’re not sleeping with Katie.”
“I’m not sleeping with Katie,” Neil says quickly. His face is red.
“But you are doing other stuff.” It’s not so much a question as an accusation.
Neil does not say anything.
“You and Katie?” I am having trouble wrapping my mind around the concept.
“Well, you’ve been hanging out with Celeste so much.”
“Not really. I have lunch with you guys almost every day.”
Neil stops and faces me. “Are you angry?”
“No,” I say angrily. “I just can’t believe you’ve been doing it behind my back.”
I don’t know why this is all so upsetting to me. Am I jealous? Why should I be when I have a girlfriend already? Am I worried about being the odd man out? Is it that I always imagined that if Katie ever went out with one of us it would be with me? Or is it just the shock of discovering that in the blink of an eye your whole sense of the universe can be turned upside down?
We get on the bus and take an empty seat near the back. “So how did all this happen?” I ask.
“You have to promise not to tell Katie I told you,” Neil says. “She said if I tell anyone, she’ll cut my balls off.”
I promise, and Neil recounts how the day after that kiss in the cafeteria, they were hanging out at Katie’s house, and Katie pulled out a bottle of vodka and they got drunk and then they just started kissing. “Since then, we’ve hooked up a few times, but Katie always wants to get drunk first.”
When I get home, my brother and his girlfriend are in his bedroom with the door closed. I know they are in there, because I hear talking and giggling, and then Meredith’s voice saying, “You first.”
I hurry into my room, close the door, pull out the poem I have written for Celeste, read it over, and furiously compose a final verse:
These lines, I do hope, have been a diversion
And shown you more clearly my taste for perversion.
I wrote you this poem because I’m afraid
To come out and tell you I want to get laid.
I take a deep breath. I can’t give her this. I cross it out, lie down on my bed, and close my eyes. I replay the experience of kissing Celeste for the first time. In my imagination, she takes my hand and leads me into her bedroom. We sit on her bed and kiss some more. I move my hand up her chest and she does not stop me. “Take off your pants,” I whisper.
She looks at me and blushes. “You first.”
I return to my poem and write a final verse.
Take pity, Celeste, on a struggling bard
My mind might be soft, but my pencil is hard.
My pen has been leaking all over my hand
Please be my paper; that would be grand.
On the day before Christmas vacation, Neil and Katie come to school hungover, Charlotte White does not come at all, and I come completely undone.
We are in Mr. Parke’s class, and we have just submitted the next sections of our memoirs. Celeste has written about her political and ideological awakening, and I have written about getting caught in math class with a pornographic magazine.
“I wrote you something,” I say at the end of class. I pull a folder from my book bag and hand her the poem.
I expect her to smile or to thank me or even to throw her arms around me and give me a kiss. Instead, she just stands motionless, not looking at the poem, but looking deeply troubled. “Shakespeare,” she says at last, “we
Between thinking about Charlotte, playing boyfriend to Celeste, trying to finish my poem, arguing with my parents about college applications, and working on my memoir, I somehow manage to miss the moment when Neil and Katie move from being friends to being friends with benefits.
“Is something up with you and Katie?” I ask Neil as we walk out of school one day to catch the bus home.
Neil seems a bit uncomfortable. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. You guys have just been acting a little weird lately.”
Neil doesn’t answer, and I feel a pit in my stomach.
“Tell me you’re not sleeping with Katie.”
“I’m not sleeping with Katie,” Neil says quickly. His face is red.
“But you are doing other stuff.” It’s not so much a question as an accusation.
Neil does not say anything.
“You and Katie?” I am having trouble wrapping my mind around the concept.
“Well, you’ve been hanging out with Celeste so much.”
“Not really. I have lunch with you guys almost every day.”
Neil stops and faces me. “Are you angry?”
“No,” I say angrily. “I just can’t believe you’ve been doing it behind my back.”
I don’t know why this is all so upsetting to me. Am I jealous? Why should I be when I have a girlfriend already? Am I worried about being the odd man out? Is it that I always imagined that if Katie ever went out with one of us it would be with me? Or is it just the shock of discovering that in the blink of an eye your whole sense of the universe can be turned upside down?
We get on the bus and take an empty seat near the back. “So how did all this happen?” I ask.
“You have to promise not to tell Katie I told you,” Neil says. “She said if I tell anyone, she’ll cut my balls off.”
I promise, and Neil recounts how the day after that kiss in the cafeteria, they were hanging out at Katie’s house, and Katie pulled out a bottle of vodka and they got drunk and then they just started kissing. “Since then, we’ve hooked up a few times, but Katie always wants to get drunk first.”
When I get home, my brother and his girlfriend are in his bedroom with the door closed. I know they are in there, because I hear talking and giggling, and then Meredith’s voice saying, “You first.”
I hurry into my room, close the door, pull out the poem I have written for Celeste, read it over, and furiously compose a final verse:
These lines, I do hope, have been a diversion
And shown you more clearly my taste for perversion.
I wrote you this poem because I’m afraid
To come out and tell you I want to get laid.
I take a deep breath. I can’t give her this. I cross it out, lie down on my bed, and close my eyes. I replay the experience of kissing Celeste for the first time. In my imagination, she takes my hand and leads me into her bedroom. We sit on her bed and kiss some more. I move my hand up her chest and she does not stop me. “Take off your pants,” I whisper.
She looks at me and blushes. “You first.”
I return to my poem and write a final verse.
Take pity, Celeste, on a struggling bard
My mind might be soft, but my pencil is hard.
My pen has been leaking all over my hand
Please be my paper; that would be grand.
On the day before Christmas vacation, Neil and Katie come to school hungover, Charlotte White does not come at all, and I come completely undone.
We are in Mr. Parke’s class, and we have just submitted the next sections of our memoirs. Celeste has written about her political and ideological awakening, and I have written about getting caught in math class with a pornographic magazine.
“I wrote you something,” I say at the end of class. I pull a folder from my book bag and hand her the poem.
I expect her to smile or to thank me or even to throw her arms around me and give me a kiss. Instead, she just stands motionless, not looking at the poem, but looking deeply troubled. “Shakespeare,” she says at last, “we
Similar Books
