The Screwed-Up Life of Charlie the Second by Drew Ferguson

that bad with the making-out-with-guys thing. But that’s not saying a lot.
    I was really nervous the whole time. I kept thinking Mr. Hunt’d walk in on us going at it, our dicks rubbing together like we were a couple of Boy Scouts starting campfires in our underwear. Half the time we tried kissing our teeth would clink together or I’d jab him in the eye with my nose or bump his forehead with my chin. Or we’d roll over and our knees would knock. I’d grab him and he’d flinch ’cuz I was holding him too hard. I kept saying “I’m sorry,” “oops,” “so sorry,” until Rob stuck his tongue down my throat to make me shut up.
    So there. I’m no James Brown sex machine or Rick James superfreak. Rob’s a lot more experienced. I can tell. I’ve got the marks to prove it—whisker burn along my jaw and hickeys down my ribcage. When was he down there? Oh, and he bites. Hard. Not that that’s a bad thing. I’m just surprised I have ears left. My nipples are still pretty sore, too. They’re all swollen and it almost hurts to wear a shirt. Actually, it feels kind of cool, like he’s given me love tattoos. That should be the name of a lounge singer’s band. And now, ladies and gentlemen, it’s my great pleasure to present to you the incomparable song stylings of Charlie Stewart and his Love Tattoos. He’s here ’til Thursday. Try the veal.
    Still, I’m good at spooning. Even though Rob’s dick poked my butt, I didn’t reach around to play with it. I didn’t even play with mine.
    I woke up way before Rob with a major case of morning wood. I thought about humping his hand until he woke up, but I really needed to take a leak in the worst way. I untangled myself from Rob, tiptoed to the bathroom, and tried to pee without making a mess of everything.
    Girls have it easy. Sure, they have periods and babies and menopause and all. Big deal. Try pissing through a hard-on. Waiting for it to go away doesn’t work. It’s a proven fact that a teenaged boy can’t lose wood if he’s gotta piss. He can pound one off and then try peeing when it’s back at half-staff, but sometimes he can’t bust a nut if he’s gotta go. He can try the cold shower routine, where he prays the freezing water will make him lose it before he sprays his chest. There’s the screw-it-piss-through-it option. No guy’ll admit doing it, but sometimes it’s the only way to get the job done. You stand over the bathroom sink (or any sink for that matter) on your tippytoes, point Mr. Happy at the drain, and let it rip. Sure, it sounds gross, but it’s just another one of those things guys don’t talk about—like farmer blows in the shower or seeing if they can suck themselves off. I can’t; I nearly sprained my neck trying.
    I did a variation of the screw-it-piss-through-it method, ’cuz if a guy shoots in his shorts and lets it dry, things down there get stuck. He’s gotta go slow with the undressing. If he’s glued to his underwear, he can’t do the Band-Aid thing—the fast tug so the scab doesn’t come off—because that’d hurt way too much. So, I uncemented my underwear with a few drops of water from the faucet and then managed to shimmy into the toilet sandwich position—my butt cheeks on the seat like the top slice of bread, the seat where the meat would be, and Mr. Five-Incher hooked under it like he was the bottom slice. I pushed him down at his base so he wouldn’t spray the bathroom floor and soak my shorts.
    When I finished, Rob was still asleep and drooling a little on his pillowcase, so I grabbed a pair of baggy basketball shorts and an oversized T-shirt, put them on, and went downstairs. I heard Mr. Hunt arguing with Nurse Julie.
    The gist of the fight was that Mrs. Hunt would need a ventilator soon, maybe a feeding tube. According to Julie, she wouldn’t