These days, the boys are listening to Riff Raff and the girls are wearing fake gold chains with tiny spoon pendants. No one has heard of Fentanyl. Becca is cutting up lines for me. My best friend Danny texted me an hour ago: come thru big dog, she has good shit. The wall in front of me has a bunch of polaroids hanging from tiny clothespins. Becca and her parents, Becca and her cat, Becca wearing a tie-dye halter top. I’m not sure if she’s Danny’s dealer, friend, or lover.

That was a fatty, Danny says. Wanna gum it? Yeah. I rub the powder on my gums, and squint at him. Does Danny know I like boys? I like him a lot. I like his hairy arms and the shape of his nose and his cocky attitude. The coke is making me horny. My heart is beating really fast. Danny nods at me a knowing smirk, like, pull it together, dude.

Let’s go out, he says.

*

Becca and I are drunk, dancing. Robyn plays on two huge speakers in the sort of Los Angeles backyard that is really just a gravel parking lot. I’m in the corner, watching you kiss her, ohhhh. She feeds me a couple bumps off of her key. I spin her around. I dip her. We’re the stars of the party. Then the song changes to something I don’t recognize. I go inside and find Danny in the kitchen talking to a guy wearing a green polo shirt underneath a pink polo shirt.

Big dog, I got us some more, he says with a smirk. We make a beeline for the bathroom and lock the door. I gotta sober up, he says. I feel great, I tell him. I sit on the lip of the bathtub and watch him hunch over the sink as he sweeps two clumps of powder into clean lines on the screen of his phone. How’d you meet Becca? I ask him.

He’s sliding his Chase Private Client debit card rhythmically against the lines, eyes glazed over. He turns to me, his eyebrows gingerly pressed together in a serious expression. Big dog. My man… he trails off, staring at me.

He blinks several times, like the part of his brain which had formed this thought was glitching out. I stare into his eyes for a moment, trying to get a read. He turns away, and I look down at his bulge, wedged between his left thigh and the khaki fabric of his slim-fit J. Crew chinos. Becca knocks on the door. We’re leaving, she says. OK, meet you at my place, Danny yells back.

*

Danny’s parents are out of town. We sit by the side of the pool at his house, listening to the dull sounds of laughter and country music emanating from the party inside. A dozen people are in the living room, playing rage cage. Becca stands on the coffee table, her hips gyrating gently, almost apathetically. Danny doesn’t feel the need to play party cop with people at his house. He’s not the type to say, hey, don’t touch that, my dad’s gonna freak.

Our bodies are tinted blue-green in the pool light. Danny wears a serious expression. He closes one eye, concentrating on cutting up a few lines on a dinner plate he brought out from the house. He passes it to me after taking his portion. I’m all right, I tell him. Gum the bag? he asks me. Sure.

Big dog, he whispers. Thanks for coming. He leans over and rests his head on my shoulder. I exhale a shaky breath. Of course, I say, Where else would I be? Danny picks his head up off my shoulder and looks up at me, smiling like he cracked an inside joke, waiting for me to get it. You’re a really special person, he says, slurring slightly. You — he jabs a finger into my chest for emphasis — you are a really special person.

I look down and notice his dick is hard in his shorts. I quickly look away, focusing on the lights inside his pool house. It’s empty. Becca and the others left to go buy more coke. Danny grabs my hand. Our eyes meet for a moment. He doesn’t look drunk anymore; his gaze has a sober intensity to it. He shoves my hand into his crotch, not saying a word.

Do you want me to…?

I start to stroke as we hold eye contact, thinking I’ve made it. This is what I wanted. Fuck, he keeps saying. I spit into my hand and keep going, focusing on the rhythm. Fuck, man. He seems to be enjoying it. We hear voices coming from the driveway, and turn our heads, but I don’t stop. Fuck. Fuckfuckkfuck I hear him say and I can’t tell if he’s about to come or if he’s suddenly realizing our tryst was a huge mistake.

He leaps up in one graceful motion and shoves his dick back into his shorts, not saying anything. I watch him adjust his man parts and walk away as I jerk off, finishing into the pool. It sinks into the water like rain in slow motion.

I watch Danny dry off inside as Becca looks him up and down. They talk for a moment, then he kisses her forcefully. She bends backward over the rear of the couch while he stands over her, devouring her neck and supporting her with one arm.

I wash the semen off of my hands in the pool.

*

It’s still dark when I wake up on the pool deck, but I can hear the birds chirping. Someone turned the music off. I look up at the moon — it’s just a little sliver of white. I sit up, pull my feet out of the water, and walk inside. When I get to his room, I stand in the doorway for a moment, watching him sleep, dripping pool water onto the carpet.

His face contorts slightly, like he’s having a bad dream. His limbs are splayed across the sheets, taking up the whole bed.

Danny, I whisper.

I’m not your dog.

Then I lie down and sleep on the floor.