I cup his hands in mine, and I feel a spark that electrifies our senses. I fake a shiver to mask the voltage travelling down my spine. Just a pair of heterosexual lads, skin on skin, the hairs on our hands transmitting signals like the crackling charge between pylons.
He takes a deep suck from the freshly lit joint and turns his head to blow the smoke away from my face. Passing it to me, I clamp my lips around the damp end and suddenly feel self-conscious. In school, you never drank from the bottom of someone else’s pop bottle because, in the words of the wise oracles, it’s just backwash….just spit and phlegm. And now I don’t want to have a puff because it feels too much like a kiss. And that is too much to ask from a stranger.
He leans against a wall, and I hand it back. I’m mashed after one…. it’s my first time, but of course I’m bluffing. Badly. If this is a poker game I’ve got a pair of aces and I’ve punched the air; he’s got a two and a seven and he’s said absolutely nothing, except Raise.
I try to lean against the wall, but the bricks are too soft. Like a bouncy castle, I don’t know if I’m going to sink and fall or rebound and fall. So I settle for a stumble, arms flailing, trying to balance. He smiles, and doesn’t offer me another go. He just watches.
jimmi campkin 