He felt as though he were wandering in the forests of the sea bottom, lost in a monstrous world where he himself was the monster. He was alone. The past was dead, the future was unimaginable.

âGeorge Orwell,
1984

Now is the only thing that's real.

âCharles Manson

TRANSMISSION 01:
over the shirt, under the bra

September

Peckerbrook Highâlike every other high schoolâsucks. But Peckerbrook sucks for one or maybe two specific reasons in addition to all the other reasons high schools suck in general.

At Peckerbrook, every pupil is either “artistic” (as implied by its status as a Performing Arts Magnet School) or black. This isn't to say that there aren't black people registered in the vaunted arts classes. But in a school that is sixty-five percent African-American (a “vibrant and culturally rich community” is what the brochure says), only five people of color are involved in its arts program, which includes hundreds of students.

Most of us white kids are bussed in from the wealthier communities in the northern sector of the county. The rest of us have mothers like mineâwomen living in the squalor of the outer city limits who
see their children succeeding where they never could, insisting that their sons and daughters are the next Brandos or Streeps or Barbra frickin' Streisands.

The black kids laugh at us “performing” white folk, then deal drugs right in front of the school, selling little bags of weed and crack after the faculty has gone home for the day.

Once I had to wait for my mother to pick me up (she was late, as usual), and these four crack-slingers walked over and just started beating on my head. A Samaritan in a BMW pulled up moments later and chased them away with an umbrella and his middle-class white-man authority.

My first day in drama this tall, unaffected Amazon of a girl sits beside me as I cocoon myself in a corner of the theater.

“You don't need to worry,” she assures me. “All the drama people are cool.”

I try smiling at her.

She is beautiful. She says her name is Tabitha. And unlike much of Atlanta, which consists of people who have transferred here from all points north, she has a
true
Southern accentâand breasts that round out the top of her shirt like an answer to prayer.

Class begins with a series of exercises where everybody lies on the floor and focuses on their breathing.

Breathe.

Listen
to yourself breathe.

Then comes the “stress reduction” massage.

Tabitha scoots up next to me and asks if I'll “do” her.

“Do? Yeahâ¦OK.”

She lies in front of me and waits, eyes closed.

I touch her, allowing the palms of my hands to skim the linen of her shirt.

She asks if I am going to actually rub her back or just pretend.

“This part isn't supposed to be acting,” she informs me.

“I know, I was just warming up,” I say, trying to sound natural.

I begin at her neck, for real this time, kneading soft circles around the muscles and then down the spine and out to the shoulder blades, allowing my hands to pass over the contours of her body.

This goes on for some time before she begins moaning softly and I have toâ¦
readjust
. With every moan I become more aroused and with every readjustment it seems she moans louder.

“Go under my shirt,” she says.

I pull her shirt up to the middle of her back, just below the bra strap, and watch as goose bumps form. She is magnificent.

“Pull it up all the way.”

“All
the way?” I whisper.

“Yeah, all the way,” she repeats, her head on her forearms, eyes still closed. She rises off the floor slightly so that I can get her t-shirt past her bra. I look around at the rest of the class to gauge how they are dealing with the striptease developing in their midst but no one seems to have the slightest idea.

“Does this feel good?” I ask, trying to keep my breathing in check.

“It doooes.”

I swallow. “Good.”

I continue rubbing, trying to be professional about it and all.

Then she pushes herself up onto her forearms, turns to face me. “Two things,” she says. “I want you to take your index and middle fingers on both hands, bend them at the knuckle, then pinch and twist. It feels better when it hurts a little.”

She lies down again and closes her eyes like before. I look at my hands and practice the twisting motion with my fingers before I go back to work on her.

“What was the second thing?”

“Oh, that's right,” Tabitha purrs as I pinch her. “Unsnap my bra.”

I want to make love to her.

“How do you do that?” Now I'm panicking.

“Just push the ends in toward each other and it'll snap free.”

Finally the clasp loosens and separates. Her bra slips away and there I sit, straddling her bottom with a hard-on, her naked back begging me to touch it, to make love to it with my fingers. I can see her tan lines and how the sides of her breasts remain their natural flesh tone, completely uncorrupted by sun.

The more I rub the harder I get and I wonder if she can feel me through my pants. I
want
her to feel me. The tanned canvas of her back is mine for the taking and I imagine myself an artist of the highest vocation, sculpting her into immortality.

Her skin gathers between my fingers, and no matter how hard I pull or pinch, it always snaps back into place leaving a red welt, the only reminder of my concentrated ministrations. She moans with every twist, every pull. Her breasts protrude on either side of her prone body, pushed out slightly. There are no visible nipples or anything of that magnitude, but there
is
the definitive swell. It is the unmistakable sight of finality, fullness, completeness, the ultimate signifier of female perfection.

It occurs to me that I've never seen a real-life breast until that moment.

“Why'd you stop rubbing?”

I'm stuck, staring at her breast swells, my hands motionless on her back.

“Hey!”

“Huh?” I snap to attention.

She opens one eye and looks at me, shifts under my weight, and
rises up just enough so that I can see her right breast fully rounded as it hangs suspended in the sweltering air.

She drops her arms out from under her and sinks back to the floor.

“Were you looking at my tits?”

I meet her upturned eye, ashamed. I've been distracted from the business of theater by something as inconsequential as a breast.

“No,” I proclaim.

“Why not?” she counters, her eyes closed once again and a smile widening across her perfect face.

I've never gotten this much attention from anyone. And Tabitha has no qualms about using her sexuality to drive me batshit. She encourages me to take afternoon naps at her apartment. In her bed, no less. While she's
in
it.

After about the third day hanging out, it's obvious to both of us that I'd marry her whenever she might come around to that brilliant idea. So, because of my unabashed and unwavering loyalty to her, I've been awarded certain perks. Perks that most best-friends-of-the-opposite-sex-that-aren't-boyfriends wouldn't get. For example, I can sleep in her bedâbut not have sex with her. I can't see her nakedâbut she'll lie next to me wearing only her panties and an XXL t-shirt that skirts just past her thighs. She'll wrestle with me and if I manage to pin her for some arbitrary amount of time she'll allow me to heft the weight of her breasts in my hands. And then I'll watch in excruciating pleasure as her nipples get stiffer beneath the fabric of her shirt, because she's turned on by the game of playing
me
. It's not a spiteful game, exactly, but one where she already knows the outcome and I am the kind of naive sucker who falls into all the little traps designed specifically to enhance her vanity. Yes, I'm
that guy
, the pathetic
friend
you always see in the movies, the nice guy who would
give anything for his female comrade to finally realize that he is the one that'll make everything right.

She has her boyfriends and her pile-driver sex, but she always comes back to me to talk about how big a loser what's-his-name was.

“See, Luke,” she's always saying to me, “
this
is why I don't ever want us to have sex. It would ruin everything.”

“Are you saying that every time anyone has sex they're ruining a potential friendship?” I counter.

“No, not every time. I mean, there are people who have sex and love each other and get along great, I guess. But usually people are only having sex for their own amusement and it fucks up any real possibility.”

“It wouldn't fuck
us
up.”

She looks at me. She knows. “I can't do that, Luke. You know that.”

“Then why do you keep messing with me like this, especially when you know I want to be with you the way Robert has, and Ron and Damien?”

“You mean you wanna
fuck
me?” She's sitting up now, pushing me off her. “Is that what you want? You want to be just another dick? Fine, I'll fuck you, Luke. Take off your pants.”

She tries to unbutton my jeans. I grab her arms and, despite weeks of fantasizing to the contrary, try to
prevent
her from taking my clothes off.

“No, Luke, our relationship isn't good enough for you.” She continues struggling with me. “You want my brain, my trust, my love,
and
my body, so I'll give it to you. I'll slide my pussy onto your cock and bring you to mind-numbing orgasm. I'm already slick and wet and ready for you.”

Reverse psychology be damned, I am more turned on than I've ever been.

“But just remember,” she continues as I lie helpless on her bedroom floor, her fingers nimbly working me out of my pants, “that as soon as you get thisâ¦you lose the brain, the trust, and the love.”

“Why does it have to be like that?” I'm gasping with anticipation now, watching her hands, her heaving chest.

“Poor Luke.” She shakes her head. “You're going to want me to stay at your house and hold your hand and act like we love each other the way
you
want us to love each other and I'm not going to be able to love you like that and then you'll see what I was talking about when I said sex would ruin us.” She's so frigging self-assured. I hate that.

She's got me out of my pants now and I'm hard as all hell but Tabitha ignores my pecker in her hand, which really sucks or blows or whatever because I've always wanted to know what she thought of my size compared to her boyfriends'. She's staring into my eyes and squeezing me purple.

“Why can't we have all of it?”

“I love you more than I've ever loved anyone, honey. But I guess something's wrong with me. You're too
nice
or something. All the guys I'm attracted to are total dicks who I could never actually love. So maybe I'm just fucked.”

I've resigned myself, yet again, to zero satisfaction. My hard-on rapidly falters.

I open my mouth to speak but close it just as quickly. Then try once more to get it out. “So this isn't true love, what we have?”

“I don't know what it is. I just know that I love what we have, exactly the way it is now. I want us to always have each other. And I know if we fuck, I'll changeâand so will you.”

“Noâ”

She shrugs. “And then whatever we had will be gone.”

I feel myself going numb, the blood returning to other organs.

“Please let go of me.”

“I'm sorry.”

I stand and turn to zip up.

“You're right, Tab,” I assure her. “You're always right.”

“Where are you going?”

“Home.”

“Are you mad at me?”

“No.”

“I'm sorry, Luke. I love you and I wouldn't trade you for anything. I'm selfish that way, I guess.” Something about her mouth looks like regret. Probably not, but I'll take it as such.

“Well, just don't stop letting me feel you up. I can't tell you how much that means to me,” I say.

She smiles.

I stare at my feet in their socks, look up to meet her eyes.

“I love you, Luke.” She puts her hand on my shoulder.

BOOK: Futureproof

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