My Best Friend Jake

It all started when I was 14, with my best friend Jake…

For about a year or so, since eighth grade, my best friend Jake and I had been exploring the wonders of drinking and partying together. My older brother, a senior in highschool, liked to have parties out at the ranch we lived on, so we had easy access. We had a small, one room bunkhouse about two hundred yards from our house where we could have parties without our parents thinking anything bad was going on. On a usual night, we would party until about midnight, until we were well beyond tipsy, but not too drunk, and then stumble up to the house and go to sleep. Sometimes we would look at some porn or something, or talk about sex, but it was always just for the sake of being guys. Boys will be boys, they say. But one night, about three or four weeks after Jake’s birthday, the night proved to be anything but a usual night.

It started like any other party, all of my brother’s friends drinking and dancing, and me and Jake just blending in. A few girls invited us over to the table they were sitting at and we all started playing “Waterfall”, our favorite drinking game. As time went by, we were getting more and more watered down, and finally, around 1:30, decided we should go up to the house. “One more beer,” Jake insisted, already staggering over to the fridge. “Okay,” I said, “Just one more.” We chugged the beers and started walking up the road to my house.

“Hey Alex,” Jake said, “Do you ever think about sex?”

What a stupid question, I thought. Of course I did. I was a teenage boy. We all did, and we had talked about this before.