Pylar's shoulders hurt from how tense he was, but he couldn't think of a way to get himself to relax. He couldn't get that momentary feeling or her face, or the way she followed him around the store out of his head; no one had ever done that to him before. It was persistent. It was aggressive. It was... it was definitely sexual even if he'd never had that kind of sexual interaction before. The car started to ding insistently in time with the flashing seatbelt light on the dash, and it continued to chime until Pylar caved and buckled himself in.

Maddox inched the music up a bit to try and alleviate the awkward silence. "Are you sure you're okay?" As they merge onto the highway the car rocks, the glass bottles clink together against his legs.

There's a long pause. Pylar could feel the tension in his shoulders start to loosen. "I forgot the beer."

"Oh. We can go back-"

"No." Pylar blurted out. "No, it's..fine. It was cheap shit anyways."

Maddox pursed his lips and aggressively pushed his glasses up his nose."Pylar did something happen in there?"

Pylar sank back in his seat and propped his left arm on the edge of the door. "Do you think...Okay, Mad, stupid question time, but do you think people like... go in heat and then... like... can't control themselves?"

Maddox set his phone against the magnet on the dashboard console. He crossed his arms and gave a crooked smirk. "In heat? You mean... people... wanting to have sex?"

"Yeah, but like, the more... animistic drive thing where it's like you've gotta get on them, you've gotta jump someone now and — I don't know — have babies?" 

"Yeah, dude." Maddox straightened the plastic bag between his feet so it wouldn't smack around as much. "It's called being horny."

"Not just being horny—ugh," Pylar's tongue clicked as he struggled to find the exact words to express what he saw at the liquor store; the focus in her eyes, the way her fingers felt against his skin; it was not the type of stuff they saw in pornos and it wasn't what school taught them about in sex ed. "Like... impulsive—"

"Still just being horny."

"But it's more than that, Mad. It's a lot more than... that." Pylar's voice became weaker toward the end and he gave up on whatever it was he was trying to say. He heard Maddox ask him what he meant by that, but he didn't answer because he wasn't even sure what he was trying to say. Sex had always been weird to him. Weird and ridiculous looking. Watching sexual actions like thrusting or humping or... hands going up and down someone's thighs and between their legs — the whole mating 'dance' people did was nothing but ridiculous in appearance. The panting hot breath against someone's skin, hips rubbing against hips, the idea of inserting yourself into someone else or getting on your knees and bouncing your head back and forth with a mouth full of another person's genitals. Looking at it or thinking about it never made it seem less weird. Strippers on poles made tens of thousands of dollars by pressing their asses into a metal bar and splitting their legs and Pylar never could figure out why anyone liked it so much to throw money at it. If it were any other situation, the audience might've assumed they were possessed or having a heart attack.

Pylar asked Maddox about it before when they'd been viewed porn together. They never ... touched themselves together while watching it. Anything they watched might've worked Maddox up, but the first time they watched, Maddox had only rubbed himself through his pants a couple of times, but never got himself out and when Pylar said he didn't feel anything, but bored and kind of disgusted, every video they watched after that was either to laugh at the bad setup or because someone in class recommended it.

Going to college parties was weird when other kids would get drunk and touch each other to heavy beats and lyrics like, "Yeah, girl, I want to fuck you so hard, fuck you in the closet, fuck you in my car. Girl, there ain't no place I'd rather be than inside you, gonna ride you, like the lambo of my dreams, girl." The music sounded just as stupid as his peers looked slipping into the primal mating dance. Pylar didn't want to be like them, to be controlled by whatever thing was in that cashier's eyes, but he wanted to understand why he wasn't like them and what... it even felt like to look at sex and not just think... it's all ridiculous.

Pylar glanced sidelong at Maddox. He held the phone in his hand and stared at the illuminated map screen. Relief. Pylar thought maybe this was the time he'd be too weird; his questions would become that abnormal and Maddox would look at him like an alien. "I've just been thinking about it recently. You know... with that club... and the invite—"

"I bet it's a secret society," Maddox said.

Pylar glanced over again, but Maddox still focused on the phone. A small chuckle and Pylar said, "What?"

"Like, did you ever see that movie, Eyes Wide Open?" Maddox finally looked up.

"No." Pylar shook his head.

"Secret sex cult society, a bunch of elite people from all over the world. Human trafficking and demonic rituals and stuff. You said there was a church inside." Maddox focused his eyes back on the screen. "Don't get yourself pulled into a cult."

"It as just a show, Mad. Like, a theme—"

"Turn right up here."

The conversation died off as the exhaustion of travel set in. Neither of them spoke much but to point out a weird-looking tree or a possible house buried in the back of the trees or a shape in the side of the mountains. Maddox announced every sign that said Niagara was getting closer like he was a stopwatch counting down miles. The radio switched between on and off, but as they came closer to the falls, the radio stayed off and the car filled with the distant sounds of Niagara. The hotel, Royal Water, was five minutes from the Niagara Falls shopping center and the falls could be seen when driving past it. From the parking lot, it would take maybe ten minutes or fifteen minutes to reach the water and bottom of the falls sat on the other side of the river.

Pylar parked the car and pulled their luggage from the trunk, though his hand lingered as he watched the lit water pour down freely in the sunset. "This... is an amazing spot, Mad."

Maddox smiled wide and attempted to control it as he took his luggage from Pylar's hand and rolled it away. He couldn't keep the grin from coming back and instead, turned away. He pulled out his phone and opened up the camera then snapped a quick picture of Pylar looking at the falls in the background. "I hope you realize how much trouble I had to go through to get a room facing Niagara. I could've done a room with no windows or something forever down the road, but I thought, you know, we only turn twenty-one once and it might be stupid to put extra importance on any birthday because whatever... what do the higher number really mean, but still I thought, you know, what the hell, right?"

"Thanks, man." Pylar turned from the falls and wrapped his arms around Maddox. The second they were close, he felt the same heat coming from Maddox that had been coming off of the cashier and similar to what he'd felt back at the club. His skin heated in a way that was itchy, but nothing a scratch could solve. Maddox barely got to hug Pylar back before the embrace was broken and Pylar returned the space between them. He rubbed his arms against the side of his body, hoping it would quell some of the annoying tingling on the surface of his skin. "You didn't have to go through all this trouble, but... this is awesome." He closed the trunk and looked out over the parking lot to the falls below. "How much did it cost?"

"Only all my tips for the last few months and a couple extra shifts. All those times I couldn't make our usual, uh, movie nights? Yeah. Have to get the hours in before the drone overlords take over my job, you know? We're only a few years out from self-driving pizza delivery cars," Maddox said. "I can def compete with the middle-aged guy for the job, but I don't know about a robot who won't demand pay."

"It'll demand repairs though and if they're anything like cars when they break down..." Pylar give his little dark green sedan a side-eye. It wasn't anything special and would fade into the background of any parking lot if it was a more generic color. It was far from new and it had its problems every couple of months. There was a small dent on back door on the driver's side. The seats were worn and stained and the thing had smelled musty, moldy, and a little bit like hamburgers since the day he got it. From how often he and Maddox transported food in the vehicle, it hadn't helped air out the stagnating smells, but added to it. Pizza, grease, wings, sometimes the relief of a little bit of fresh pizza dough instead of the molten cheese. When he'd first gotten the car, Pylar had tried hard to get rid of the smell. First it was a hanging pine tree smell that mixed with all the must and leftover food, but somehow ended up smelling like roadkill skunk. Then it was a lavender scent that hung on the air vent, but that, too, turned into the smell of an overrun marsh with rotting fish. The best cope for the car was driving without trying to alter its scent and accepting it for what it was — better than getting around on a bike, especially in rain, snow, or simply the northern cold.

"There's a reason I haven't rushed into getting a car," Maddox said, "Plus, when I get one — when I finally get one, I'm going to get a good one. Something new. Something... I can take back if it breaks down on me in the first two months." Maddox elbowed Pylar.

"That wasn't the car's fault, it was just my luck."

Maddox laughed and Pylar smiled back at him. His eyes drew to the water and he felt his body pulling him. He didn't have a particular allure to water, but something made him want to go down to the falls in a way that felt like rope had gotten a hold on him and was pulling him down. "—the room?"

"Hm?" Pylar only glanced behind him.

"I said you wanna go to the room?" Maddox voice changed. It wasn't uncomfortable or jagged, or that weird harsh, uncontrolled, untrained blunt tone that commanded more laughter in a room than attention. It was something smooth and deep and confident. Something that caused Pylar's skin to heat and his heart to race.

Pylar swallowed hard; there was no way it was him.

"Maybe you're a virgin now, but you don't have to be inexperienced when you leave." There was no mistaking him: Gage.