In ‘97, I was eleven, living in Toronto when what should have been just another sleep over at my best friend Hiram’s house turned into a nightmare. It started out typically enough with us stealing gulps of his parents’ lousy vodka and salty wine, sneaking out to the basketball court across the street to smoke some shitty pot, watching French-Canadian pornography until 2AM.
The television screen softly flickered writhing ladies: undulating breasts, pussy eating left and right. I could feel my jeans shrinking against my erection. Excited and little boy buzzed from the booze and pot I blurted, “Oh wow look at that one!”
“Shhh, you’ll wake my parents up” Hiram scolded.
Hiram was silent but out of the corner of my left eye I noticed him staring at me. At thirteen, he was two years older and my initiator in all things I then considered cool: skateboarding, smoking, and kissing girls.
“What do you think about when you jack off?” Hiram asked, rubbing his crotch, eyes darting from the television screen to me, gleaming with sexual tension that scared me.
“Pamela Anderson in ‘Barbed Wire’ I said. “Or Mrs. Tam our 3rd grade teacher.”
We both laughed and he stopped touching his dick. I was relieved but confused. He was my best friend, so I tried not to make too much of his gaze.
At 3AM we went upstairs to sleep. I slept on a futon, near the door on his floor while he fell heavily onto his bed. I woke to Hiram straddling my back. I could feel his pubescent pecker on my pajama bottoms. I tried to get up but he placed his hand on the small of my back and forced me down.
“What the hell are you doing?” I yelled.
“It’ll feel good,” he said.
I thrashed and twisted, smashing him in the balls and shoving him into the closet.
“What man? It’ll feel good, it’ll feel good,” was all he muttered.
Hiram’s mother poked her head in the door
“What’s going on here Hiram? Are you two fighting?” she asked
“No, mom we were just wrestling sorry.”
“Is this true Nicholas?’
Hiram looked at me in fear.
“Yes, sorry,”
“Well quiet down or there’ll be trouble,” she warned.
We went back to our beds and I lay there in the dark until morning. I was frightened sharing a room with someone I had trusted, now a stranger. I anxiously waited for my mom to pick me up.
Things weren’t the same between Hiram and I back in the sixth grade. We never talked about That Night, but it was in the underlining of all our conversations. The closeness we had shared as friends was replaced by unspoken aggression. Despite our sleep over, Hiram will always be the coolest of my childhood friends, the guide who showed me how to shoplift from the Don Mills mall.
-N.P. Milanoff
Six years later, my first year of grad school over, M and D have a break from their busy schedules and on impulse we decide to return.
We arrive in lush, quiet Savannah under the cover of night. The air is heavy with history and the smell of magnolias and gardenias. Petals turn to perfumed mush underfoot. Parking the car by a large square with a statue in the middle, we walk through uneven brick streets to our bed and breakfast.
The woman behind the desk is grandmotherly, with a southern drawl and sweet smile. She greets us with a plate of freshly baked cookies and a tour of the house. She shows us the back porch where we will eat fancy breakfasts, and drink iced sweet-tea. "The property is an old carriage barn. They kept carriages downstairs and the upstairs were filled with haylofts. You have your own patio." She says, handing over the keys.
Exhausted from the 13 hour car ride but bolstered by cottage comfort, we go for a walk. Then we get lost in the sullen shade of trees and Spanish moss, panic silently until we find our way back. Streets dark, shadows heavy, there is a sneaking feeling of being followed I can't shake.
The next two days are a whirl: ambling down squares, smoking on park benches, going on house tours, a pub crawl where we can drink outside and listen to ghost stories: pirates and wenches, old brothels turned schools, plantation home mansions, grand cathedrals, antebellum houses, classical art and architecture.
People here are... nice. Like really nice. I find myself smiling and saying hi to just about everyone. My favorite part: they all have stories to tell. I follow their words and gestures until my head is filled up, until my own sad little tales begin to shed from my mind, like the magnolia petals we've been stepping on since we arrived.
-Kastoory
