Merrit's Merits

Two young men were in a bedroom together, sunlight falling upon them from the window. They were both Caucasian, about nineteen or twenty years of age.

The taller one sat on the bed, with his legs folded in the lotus position. His dirty blond hair was madly gelled, spikes bristling in all directions. In his left hand, he held a spherical puzzle of carefully measured pieces of smooth bamboo. He was trying to solve it in the midst of a conversation with his companion. His blue eyes probed it for a some subtlety in its design that he might exploit.

The broader one sat at a desk, fingers typing away at a laptop computer, mostly the arrow keys and the Enter button, right hand reaching for a cordless laser mouse every so often.

"So that's why she was singing this song last night?" the typist asked. "That's fucked up, man."

"I know it is," came the reply from the bed. "It was stupid."

"It was straight, is what it was." Typing. A frustrated grunt.

Awkward silence, marked only by the creak of the bamboo puzzle as its first peace twisted to the side and allowed a second piece to come loose. "What are you working on?"

"I'm editing it into a dance remix with the vocals she recorded at the studio after breakfast, after we tweaked the more awkward lyrics."

"Your professors let you into the recording suite on a Saturday? That's ridiculous."

"Let's not change the subject, Merritt," replied the typist as he stared at the screen blankly, trying to come up with some insight about how to go about remixing the pop music in front of him, open in a complex music composition application beyond the comprehension of his roommate sitting behind him. A black toque covered most of his dark hair, while sideburns peaked out down the sides.

Merritt shook his head, though nobody was looking at him.

"Merritt?"

A piece of the puzzle fell onto the comforter of the bed.

"Ahah!" exclaimed Merritt.

"Merr-rritt," said his friend.

"Tyy-lerrrr," mimicked Merritt.

Tyler spun around in his desk chair. He remembered getting that puzzle for Christmas last December, and nobody had been able to solve it, so he had used it as a paper weight ever since. And yet, Merritt was now dismantling it before his very eyes into individual pieces.

"I'll put it back together," promised Merritt.

"I'm more concerned about what's going on upstairs," Tyler admitted, tapping his temple.

Merritt frowned. "I'm fine," he lied.

"Well, I'm not," said Tyler. "You're gay, you're fit, you're hung, you're smart, you've got heart..."

Merritt looked up, red in the face.

"I've seen you coming out of the shower. Your towel doesn't hide much. And let's not get distracted by the details. Why the heck did you have a fruit fly boning you with a piece of plastic?"

"Look, Tyler, if I'd known you were gonna be like this about it, I wouldn't have told you."

"Don't make this about me," Tyler got defensive. "You're usually so direct and honest with your feelings! I wish more people were like that. Heck, I wish I could do that in words instead of --" He gestured at the laptop screen behind him. "This."

"You're doing fine right now," pointed out Merritt.

"I ain't calm. I ain't clear-headed."

"I may not look it, but I'm not either," admitted Merritt.

"Then what are you?" asked Tyler. "I want to know."

"Depressed," began Merritt. "I was desperate, foolishly so."

"Keisha? She's one of your best friends, man. Don't mess that up by leading her crush the wrong way."

"I was clear with her," said Merritt. "We were clear with each other. I just wanted to feel something." He pressed his top front teeth gently into his lower lip.

It was a thoughtful mannerism, and it yet it sent Tyler's mind wandering to carnal acts.

For a moment, Merritt felt shame. A brand of shame he had not felt in a while.

"Why didn't you come to me, then?" demanded Tyler, caught off guard by the fact that he'd said it aloud. He was now completely ignoring his laptop.

Merritt smiled politely. "We've been over this. You can separate sex from romance when you need to. I can't. I'm hard-wired for them to go hand in hand."

Tyler tried to swallow against the stiffness knotted in his throat. "And last night?"

"I was trying to push the envelope. I guess I don't trust a guy with my feelings like I trust her. I thought maybe I'd feel something. I didn't."

"And what the fuck were you trying to feel?" asked Tyler, fists clenched against the armrests of his desk chair.

"Something I haven't felt in a while. Something I can't feel alone. If it was that simple, I'd just bend over and suck my own d--"

"You can do that?" asked Tyler, suddenly taken aback.

"Well, twisting it backwards and into my own ass isn't so easy," admitted Merritt.

Tyler swallowed again, this time because he was salivating. His dick twitched in his lap from beneath its denim prison. Tyler cocked his head to the side in an eccentric, inquisitive way. "What's this something you wanted to feel?"

"It's not like I have some fetish you don't know about," Merritt went on. "I just...-- my nerves, they... ummm..."

Tyler rested his hand on Merritt's knee. In that moment, the sunlight from the window seemed stronger to him.

Something akin to warmth spread there, from his touch, warm enough to burn, yet with relaxation instead of pain. The very thing Merritt had been longing to feel again was there, in their midst. And it scared him.

From seeing the shocked look on Merritt's face, Tyler removed his hand. "I'm sorry."

When the hand left, the warmth moved, it flowed through Merritt, swaying up into him and resting in his gut with a contentment he found, unfortunately, most nostalgic. Tears welled up in his eyes, and his expression fell.

"What's wrong?" asked Tyler rolling closer on the edge of his chair.

"I need to be alone," Merritt told him, voice full of sadness.

Tyler pursed his lips and withdrew to his desk. His erection fell.

Merritt unfolded his legs, rose from Tyler's bed, and walked out of the room, closing the door behind him.

Tyler looked at the musical notes laid out on a grid before him, and frowned. Then, he closed his greenish-brown eyes, spun around in his chair, and opened his eyes again to stare at the spot on his bed where Merritt had been sitting. His gaze remained fixated on it, his body only breathing, while his eyes followed the creases in his comforter.

The segments of bamboo from the fully dismantled puzzle were huddled like wreckage in a crater.

Tyler hummed a melody to himself, while his fingers tapped against the arm rest with a slow rhythm. His mind flickered, synapses firing as it did the math, the harmony, the overtones and the restyling. Turning back around, his hand came to rest slowly on the mouse, and then he began to input more notes, and adjust what he had already written; all with various instrument lines juxtaposed against a translucent outline of the original. Then he reached for his headphones, and immersed himself in his work.