The Men and the Boys: Asad, part 2

I caved. Not two days later I was lying on a table, the guinea pig of a live class demonstration. My hair was tightly pulled back and my face thoroughly gooked in Vaseline as the teacher and Asad began applying the very wet gauze strips.

Cover your entire face with a mud mask, a good half-inch thick, and you’ll have a good idea of how I felt. It was pasty, gunky, very smelly, and filled up every tiny detail of my facial features. Cold rivulets of the stuff kept trailing down onto my neck and scalp, where they hardened and dried. I could even taste it, as it was all over my lips, and my breathing was limited to two teensy, pseudo nostrils.

Plaster of paris is half correct application, half ample drying time. In my case, the drying time part meant a good 30-40 minutes of me laying there in my mummified state, feeling seriously gross. Asad stayed with me when the room cleared out, when everyone else went on their lunch break, when the only two students left in that room, maybe the entire school, were me and him. “I’m here,” he told me, and held my hand so I wouldn’t feel alone.

Another hint? No. Absolute clarity, more like. At that point I remember thinking, this boy likes me. He really, truly likes me. No strings attached, no hidden girlfriends, no issues. Just me.

I also remember thinking that maybe, just maybe, me voluntarily doing one of the most repulsive things I had ever done in my life meant that I liked him that way, too.

So after the mask was off, after I’d come out of the restroom from some serious cleanup time, after Asad met with me in the secluded hallway to thank me for being Nefertiti’s face, I didn’t protest when he pulled me close, or when his hands snaked around to the small of my back. And when he kissed me, I didn’t say no.

Asad was good to me. He held my hand, he kissed me often, told everyone I was his girlfriend, and was proud of the prospect. He bought me beef patties on a bun for lunch at the local student hangout, and took me to the park so we could make out under the tallest weeping willow. He took me to the movies where he let me lean on his shoulder, and nuzzled my ear teasingly while I entertained one simple, devastating thought:

I wish you were Sandy.