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It’s just knowing that he wouldn’t go for you. I keep looking at him, across the dancefloor, beer still in hand and shuffling always around ladies and people softly mocking me that I should take one as well, that I would have as much bravado as he does if I ever wanted to. But instead, being closeted is more than an appealing option and the question is just thrown around, like why I’m I still fucking around here where cigarettes are smoked and discarded and where no man will even look at me twice, even he wouldn’t. The music keeps pounding and if I were to approach him, he would see it as friendly gesture, honestly thinking that there is nothing homoerotic between two male friends, people are daft like that. I have to discard my cigarette again and I try to find some beer in the kitchen, raiding the refrigerator which for some odd reason has jelly stuck on it’s walls and I can’t help but feel stale beer approach me. He mocking kicks the door on me, so that it could’ve been a guillotine and I lift my head up to see a drunk smirk. “Oi.” Foot in shoes still on the white door. I’m not the owner, neither am I the guest of honor to protest, I just raid to find an unopened beer bottle. I have to look at his intrigued dark eyes and I try not to focus on how he is slightly illuminated in this cheap kitchen, which seems to be some decent rent or how he takes a swing of beer. He passes it onto me.It shouldn’t contain ruffies, he’s straight.I drink from it. I love daft straight men. I straighten up and he puts his arm around my shoulders and pushes with me to the dancefloor which is a cramped up living room. He yells some artist I am not aware of and the music is changed so that I can observe his horrible dancing and his back turned to me and face to the ladies. “Fuck this.” I mutter under my breath and I take one swing and I feel tempted to throw the bottle down and frankly, it wouldn’t matter because the music is loud, heels are solid and platforms are worn. I throw the bottle down, a few people glancing at me, along with the man with the intriguing eyes, he follows me slowly out. I grab my leather jacket, zipping it and he observes me.“You caused a ruckus.” He laughs, still looking at me. “Yeah, well, the party sucked.” I say, playing with the zipper as he watches me.“I’m the host of the party, Alex.” I nod and we shake hands, formally. I narrow my eyes, not even wanting to look at his messed quiff any longer and frankly I am overdue on work, I should really get the fuck out at least I would have some excuse to get drunk or decide to drink some xanax before sleep. People don’t help you and my last therapist sucked anyways. “Miles.” I mutter.“Where are you heading off then, to?” Alex asks me and I recall his daft dancing and I just shrug, as Alex takes the chance to light a cigarette, taking a box from someone elses’ jacket and I’m guessing him providing booze seems to give him the excuse that he may do such things, as steal someone else’s cigarettes. “Home.” I start rocking on my heels, due to the impatience and I regret wearing my white jeans, they deserve to see something better and I’m sure the ends of them are now soaked in beer, just like my shoes, but it seems like a fitting end to a party, which could’ve been better. “Cool. Can I join?” Alex asks and he takes one of the jackets and I presume it’s his with the tightness and some coolness added to it. He zips his own, because it is fucking cold and I just stare at him. “What? I’m joining you. My party can go on without me, I’ll still be tagged in photos.” I just shake my head and ask a cigarette off him, as we start walking in silence, but he keeps observing me, a bit too straightforward and I can’t even be bothered to start a conversation. We keep walking and he gives me some loyaltly, that he trusts that I will actually lead him home, that I am even aware of where I live and soon enough he just brightens up at the sounds of my keys taken out of my pocket by the appearence of the block of flats, I just sigh as he keeps watching me. “Why are you even following me?” I ask. “I got told you have a nice apartment and that you’re cool. Also that you’re sad coz you broke up recently. You ok?” I even try to remember which friends do we even share since I’m rather fond of even having no one on my porch, I open up the door, not hiding my frustration from sharing my evening with someone else, as we both discard our jackets and I can imagine that such said friend would knock on the door tomorrow, demanding me to reveal the man which had passed out drunk on my couch on vodka, which had been gifted for my birthday due to lack of creativity and observation that I had a man which didn’t even come close to me. “Yeah. My ex-boyfriend was an asshole, though.” I stress on the ex-boyfriend, a smile creeping on my lips, as Alex’s shallow straight world seems to collapse. He widens his dark brown eyes and kicks the rug under his feet a bit. I wonder if I have to repeat ex-boyfriend out loud, but he seems to still be taking that in. “I... I didn’t realize you’re gay.” Is the phrase uttered. “Well, maybe that’s why you shouldn’t go around following blokes back home.” I snap back, kicking off my shoes and going to the kitchen in my socks. “So, straight boy, you want tea or do we just have sex now?”I seem to be taking the piss too much, as Alex just walks in, shoes still on and shiny, which is a miracle for autumn as he just observes me and the apartment is nice, I’ve pretty much moved in here after university and decorated every piece of wall I could with whatever I had found attractive, a cut out or a vinyl sleeve. “Tea.”“Sex later, then?”He keeps quiet on the whole sex thing and I wonder how did he even manage to crawl from university. I pour both of us some fruit tea, watching him observe the walls and slowly dissolve into thinking that he is caught in a trap and I just watch him amused, he is far too striking with his self, his hair properly quiffed, eyes far too round and skin far too young and even having some traces of acne, which he seems not to bother much with. Alex catches me staring at him and I just shrug. We’re both the same age, but he seems lighter, because he doesn’t have too many things on his shoulders, whilist I have too many and with my own mental health banging the hours like a clock, reminding me of the misery I am fated in. He seems to have slowly taken the stance that he might still end up here for a while, since he already crawled in, Alex just checks his phone to see that his absence is unnoticed and maybe appreatiated because then the bedroom can be thrashed with straight sex and whatnot. I watch him sulk with a conflict of interests and in the awkward silence when the tea steam seems to be dominating the kitchen and the small table. I see his conflict of interests and I wonder where do I even shift the topic to or should I just let this silence blossom. I wonder how do you even hold a proper conversation, it’s a bit different if it’s someone queer like Jamie, who will just keep rolling up cigarettes, and keep talking about his on and off ex, whining on and off, who would never shut up and who we can end up sitting, watching television and saying who’s gay or not. What do I even do with someone like Alex?I barely even watched the World Cup this year and even then I’m sure I rooted later for teams he didn’t even care about, as England was kicked off far too early. I start tapping my fingers on the table, as Alex seems to be rather fond of all of this. “So... what do you do?” He asks me. “Excuse me?” I just seem as if I am repeating my own confusion. “For a living?” Alex phrases his question and his eyes are caught on mine and we both realize that we are far too absurd to be with each other at this point, Alex being the wrong man on the wrong hookup, our tongues should’ve been in someone’s mouths at this point and our partners seem to have different genders. “I’m a journalist.” I mutter, wondering if he expected me to have typewriters and a more explosive apartment, perhaps like Jamie’s and Brian’s whenever they seem to be on, but then the apartment just seems to be half empty, but still has all the musical junk lying around and whenever their groups aren’t fighting and whenever Jamie yanks me to some small pub where either he or Brian are playing. “Oh.” Alex doesn’t even bother to ask which magazine or newspaper for, as he just randomly stands up and starts walking around, stopping on the shelves filled with every goddamn book you can scrap off in Waterstone’s which could be gay or anytime I can force myself to go to some bookstore which would have anything interesting. “How did you know you’re gay?”I start laughing at his daft question and he just looks at me, a bit scared and slowly resembling a moth flying towards a flame and I just wonder if he would actually crack by the end of this. I go back to my jacket and I get out a cigarette for myself, putting it between my lips and offering him one. We both light our own, but the thought of lighting mine from his or the opposite, seems far too appealing and Alex’s fear seems to be dissolving, maybe that one crack which then straight men seem to hide, I don’t know for I’ve been with far too many men in my head to be considered straight or something else on the Kinsey scale. “How did you know you were straight?”“Women turn me on?”“Yeah, well, I wank to men. Does that answer your question?” I smirk, really holding from laughter and I look away so that I don’t blow smoke in his face. “Yeah.” Alex looks a bit too lost and I imagine, just like I felt odd at the straight party, because I just couldn’t handle ending up in some calm evening with Brian and Jamie until some shag on the side would emerge, which would fire up Jamie and for an understandable reason and they would kick me out of the apartment to resume their argument, takeout in hand. “You ever had anything with a bloke?” I ask Alex and he just looks at me and I’m sure he wished he had some alcohol drink in hand. Instead he just focuses on his cigarette and he closes his eyes, as he slowly inhales and opens his mouth to exhale, opening one eye as he catches me looking at his eyelashes. “No. I wondered though, but briefly. Decided that it’s too...” I blink, waiting for the vague word which I wouldn’t understand regarding my sexuality, but instead Alex just wanders off and he starts pacing from the living room into my bedroom, touching the frame of the door with his hand as he walks in. I sigh. I watch him observe the few scattered photos on the wall which is mainly with people who I’ve forgotten over the years, but the walls haven’t. I watch him keep checking stuff, just to avoid dialogue and I just sit on the bed and eventually I just throw myself back on it, arms stretched out and I just feel Alex shift to sit next to me. Both cigarettes now discarded in the small ashtray on the bedside table. “Is it the same?”“The same to what?”“Straight.” I open my eyes to see him laying besides me. I blink at his sudden shift and change of emotion and heart. Maybe he will just blame it on the alcohol and I cough lightly, a bit cold due to the lazy heaters and I can’t be bothered to even turn the heaters up fully because the day was rather warm unlike the night which grazes us. “What if I’m not straight?” Alex asks to the ceiling as he just stays besides me, looking up and I can get a full look of his face and his slim body and I just feel a bit excited, but I try to shake it off, but it’s harder with him on my bed and the fact that I had noticed him on the dancefloor because he was far too goodlooking and it was a roll of the dice, joking with myself, that perhaps he wouldn’t be straight and that I would drag him to my bed and here he is. “That’s something you have to answer for yourself.” I shrug. “Ever wanked to a bloke?”“No.”“So I presume sex neither. Crushes?”All questions I can come up with seem to have a negative reply and his worried face and eyes glued to the ceiling. I feel like I am a porn actor where the straight boy says that he is open-minded and the daddy bear just pounces, only I happen to have shaved myself and am nothing closer to a bear along with Jamie and Brian, who seem to be even less hairy than I ever was when born. I imagine them looking at me with a judging look, dining with cigarettes in their hands and black coffee for Jamie, milk deliberately on Brian’s side. “But if I try, that doesn’t make me gay?”“No, but that doesn’t make you straighter either.” I smirk and I turn my head to face him and he slowly moves and I can see his lips. I swallow slowly, feeling a bit excited and pretty much understanding that if I do the right twists and turns, I’ll get a one night stand, which would leave Brian laughing and clapping because I’m more than sure that the next day he will wake up and leave the house, promising to never sleep with a man again and I will only be talk in a very drunk state to other men, the irony. I continue grinning for the fuck of it. “So I presume you want no toys for now, then?”“Excuse me?” Alex blinks, a bit pale and I have no idea where should I even be dragging this to. “As in, what do you want then?” I sit up slightly, grabbing a pillow and putting it under my head. I take the second pillow and I stretch it out to him. Alex looks at the pillow and he leans over me and I watch him, I watch his lips, slightly opened and I just freeze, wondering what the fuck is happening and which buttons should I press once his lips are over mine and I feel his taste on my tongue, as I pull him over me, realizing that he must’ve been hard for quite a while and I thread my fingers over his gelled hair, getting it out of place, as he gently pulls my bottom lip and I guess he knew what the fuck he was going for or maybe he had realized that since he’s here he might as well just do his little experiment and I wonder if I am even up for this, but my tongue and mouth seem to be on their own, my pants tightening as he is entirely over me. I push him off to pin him down, taking him by his wrists, watching his bewildered and excited faceof something forbidden from his subconscious to conscious. He bucks his hips forward, closing his eyes to make sure to hide his reaction, as he bites his lips from a moan, as I lick his lips and I kiss his cheek down to his jaw and I slowly start biting his neck, Alex now wincing and I suck on his neck harder, as he doesn’t seem to be in control of his whole body, as I feel his erection dig into me. I wonder how clueless he is as I unzip his jeans and kiss his cock over the fabric of his cock, pulling his jeans off, as Alex opens his eyes, far too shy up to the point that I feel like I have to ask him if he even wants this, but instead he pushes my head down and as I slowly take him in my mouth, he holds my head and thrusts, making me gag lightly and push his hips down“Sorry.” I just motion with my hand for him not to worry, as I slowly start booming him, as he clutches the covers, apparently now shy with asking and being more patient as I take him out of my mouth as I slowly start tracing the tip of the cock with my fingers, teasing it, as I go down with my fingers and up again, now repeating the movement with my tongue and slowly using my other hand to stroke his cock. Alex starts moaning louder, his hands back and pulling my hair so that I take him back in my mouth. I let him thrust as hard as he can, as I feel myself more turned on so I slowly start touching myself and I have to let both go of both of us so that we don’t come. Alex looks at me painfully turned on and pulls me closer to kiss him. I pull him closer to me, as we pull away the remaining items of clothing. He starts biting my shoulder, running his hands through my body, grinding against me, still bewildered and excited, lost with no confusion, just some daft idea which most likely crossed his head maybe also back then on the dancefloor. “Fuck me.” He breathes and I just blink. Well, that was expected in this light of the night with his cock bucking against my hand. I kiss him, pushing my tongue against his, as I stretch to the bedside table, opening a drawer and I keep ruffling all the toys and condoms, as I have to break the kiss to glance at the condoms, as I stop to think for a second. I grab the lube though. “When was the last time you got checked?” I ask, opening a new box of condoms, figuring he’d need the extra lubed ones.“Sorry?”“When was the last time you got tested?”“...I have no idea.” I blink at him, confused. Are straight people really that reckless? Where are the campaigns? Oh, right, they don’t need those at Straight Pride, since of course only the gays can get AIDs. I grab the condom, sighing, that I should’ve started this before. I open one, my mouth now on his nipple, as I hear him moan, sliding the condom on. I tap his leg for him to spread them out and he does. I slowly slide one lubed finger in, hearing him moan as I lick my way down to his excited cock as I keep sucking harder and harder, sliding a second finger in as Alex keeps pulling me by the hair, moaning much louder, thrusting his cock deeper into my mouth, as I keep sliding my fingers in and out, sliding a third finger just in case, now slower, as I see him moan louder. I start licking his cock slowly, trying to turn him on as much as possible, sliding the fingers in and out, in and out, licking his cock up and down and then taking it in my mouth, as much as I can and repeat it all over and over again. I feel Alex near and that’s when I kiss him, telling him to switch onto his stomach. He does so, as I keep stroking him now, lubing up my cock again as I spread him out“Tell me if it aches, yeah?”“It’s supposed to ache?” I roll my eyes. I hesitate if I should actually reply and I do, saying that he should say if anything is discomforting in any way. I slide my fingers over the tip of his cock, licking his neck before biting it and I slowly slide in, a loud moan from Alex. I start stroking him harder, contuing to slide in, biting his neck, pushing my fingers into his mouth for him to suck, his quiff entirely destroyed and face filled with pleasure and I kiss his shoulder as I get a more steady pace, as he keeps moaning-“Deeper.” I swallow, too turned on and I start biting his shoulder, sucking on it, my hand clumsily stroking him now due to pleasure“Deeper, Miles”“Faster”I start breathing heavier as Alex thrusts against me, moaning harder, clutching me from behind, turning his head to kiss me as I keep going deeper and deeper, harder, deeper, harderI break the kiss, breathing far too heavy, turned on, Alex thrusting harder and screaming out, I open my eyes to see his orgasm, feel the fluid start running against my fingers and I thrust far too deep and I scream myself, both of us contuining to thrust for a while, until the orgasm lets go of both of us-I collapse on top of him, my lips finding his, as I still kiss him hungrily, slowly pulling out, Alex wincing lightly, as he’s back on his back, breathing heavily the bed covers an entire mess of fluids and I try not to think of the washing as I look at him, now myself scared, as he closes his eyes, arms stretched out to the head of the bed. I watch him try to regain his breath, as I sit up and sit besides him, both of us red,I think he’ll leave.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
I keep my eyes closed as he leaves, the walk of shame is said to be done alone and he seems to be taking his time, but I see that he makes a point of not looking back and he takes a mug of coffee with him outside, I think he leaves but instead it’s for a smoke and he heads back and that’s where we meet in the kitchen and I even feel my kidneys race, my whole body pulsate and a migraine originate and he just presses his lips and gets out, popping the collar of his leather jacket up and I am just left. I make coffee for myself, ignoring the vibrating phone which seems to have texts back from seven a.m. from Jamie who stood up all night because he had been fighting with Brian I figured and I sit in the kitchen an hour just browsing the news online, feeling like I reflect everything in my eyes, but not taking any deaths in. Have I even ever seen a walk of shame before? How do I even react to him? I start hearing a banging on the door, the doorbell is no use these days and I make my way, my heart hoping that it’s Alex but instead the knocking proceeds to be louder and it matches the bloodshot Jamie eyes. “You broke up.”“He cheated. With Stefan.”Both are said at the same time and we’re both taken back at the sudden realization of events and I sigh, motioning him in and he glances at the undone bed which seems a bit too tousled and he grins. I poke his forehead. “Don’t. We both had sex we’d rather not speak of Hince, what now.” I scratch the back of my head, feeling as if I had gained sleep even if neither of us touching any inch of each other’s body and Jamie just sighs, looking at the half drunk coffee mug and takes a sip of it. It’s a two-people ashtray now.“It’s not the first time.” I sigh, my own headache being mental as Jamie just cringes at my addition of sugar and milk.“Don’t you ever think of the animals?”“I don’t give a fuck about the animals. I fuck like an animal.” Jamie smirks, he’s far too light to be heartbroken. I wonder if it was a threesome gone wrong but then I notice his bloodied knuckles, fight got out of hand. I wonder if it was Brian or Stefan’s face. “You need a shave, Hince.” I mutter and he widens his eyes looking at my stubble. It gets ridiculous, sometimes you wish you were stuck in your teens, peeping at the bathroom mirror slowly feeling the whatever the fuck pubic hair which crawled onto your face and wanted to call itself sexy. Jamie makes himself black coffee, barely any sugar, I’m sure he survives.“Why don’t we date?”“Because if you put Fugazi’s Red Medicine I will pull your eyesockets out. And you stand Brian’s Richey shrine. I can’t do any of that. Both of you can.” Jamie sulks, but mutters fair point and just says that Fugazi is still amazing and I ignore that. He turns on the telly and I just join him on the floor, it’s like a ritual, if Jamie is sitting on the floor, Brian would join him and if it’s me next Brian or not, I’d join as well. “Did you see Alex leave?”Jamie shakes his head and starts flicking through channels as if that would hold any of our emptiness away and he glances at me for a brief while and I just look back, pushing his shoulder lightly, taking the piss before any of us have some heartbroken shag and I just stand up, Jamie stopping on some cooking show. Neither of us can barely cook, I managed to start doing something but all Jamie can do is grilled cheese and Brian would end up taking the task of not poisoning himself and his lover. Jamie darkens as if I had mentioned Brian’s name outloud.“Why don’t you do an open relationship?” Jamie just rolls his eyes at my suggestion, hugging himself and pulling his legs to himself, chin against his knees, eyes closed and slowly shaking his head and I just watch him dissolve his own answer.“He doesn’t want to, he keeps saying how Stefan is a mistake. I don’t know.” He says far too fast and hesitating with his own struggles. I take my box of cigarettes giving him one, but I wave my hand at him, as I solely want to be left alone. I grab my leather jacket, waving at Jamie’s back and eventually I leave the apartment, unlit cigarette ready for it’s slow torture from both ends and I start walking, back through the streets as if I were a new man when in reality all I had was a shag which I hadn’t had in quite a while. It’s weird retracing my steps as if there is something for me to find, but I still find my way back to Alex’s door and the house still has beer bottles everywhere and the closed curtains. I wonder how come it seems so calm and post-sex, but then everything feels the anxiety of post-coital, so I have no idea.I curse, pulling my face, as I knock on the door, looking down but as I lift my head I see a girl with long brown hair. “Oh, shit-” I say before I even register it and she just smiles back at me, confused, she’s still in yesterday's attire I presume by the ruffled clothes as if she had slept in them, but her make-up looks a bit fixed, I might’ve caught her right after she brushed her teeth. She turns around to wave behind her. “I mean, I was-”She looks at me with her big eyes and I just feel even smaller.“Alex?” I mutter and she just nods, grabbing me by the arm and yanking me inside, humming some tune as I still see some people sleeping on the floor even if it’s more than past noon and all of us have started to shake off the party away, but she nearly skips to the kitchen which has Alex looking down at a new coffee mug and he just looks at me a bit pale, but that’s because I’ve pinned all his feelings down last night. Then she turns around and claps her hands together.“Miles, right?” She beams and I nod, scared and she just gets even merrier. “Oooh, Agyness talked about you. You’re gay, right?”I blink. I just nod, confused, how come is my sexuality told everyone on a silver plate and Alex had no idea, as he avoids me and I just observe him before going back to the girl’s hazel eyes. “How come Alex never told me? He always would do all these gay jokes and how he would never have a gay friend.”“We’re not friends-” Is spoken from each of our mouths and eyes met for a while, as the girl just looks back at Alex more confused from his participation than my face and fact. Great, gay jokes. All I needed was homophobic confirmation and I just stick my hands in my jeans, looking down. I didn’t even register how tussled his hair looked and how I had wanted him in my arms again until the sting reminded me what was lurking in the back of my mind, in the back of the split sphere. I just shake my head lightly and I’m about to leave, but the girl grabs my hand again and I just stare back.“I’m Arielle, Alex’s girlfriend.” Fuck. Girlfriend? I shoot a quick glance at him. “It’s ok, Alex is a moron. I’d love to have a gay friend.”Enough.I’d rather have Jamie put on Red Medicine and some other bullshit, at least I know he’s gay and sane. I shrug her hand off and Arielle turns to look at Alex confused, who just continues sipping his coffee until I make my way out and he quickly stands up to follow me and I feel my body start shaking and my knees weaken. We get out of the house, Arielle behind and I just light a cigarette which he yanks out of my mouth and my lips ache as I watch him. I’m sure he’s not aware of how good looking he is, with the quiff entirely gone and morning leaving traces in the day. But I keep that for myself to die. I get myself another cigarette.“Gay jokes?” I hiss, laughing afterwards. “That’s fucked up, considering you really wanted to get fucked, mate and you did. Fuck you.” I shove a finger in his chest, as if accusing, but then I am and as if drunk with my own reality I turn around to feel him grab my hand, but as I shrug it off and start walking away, he follows me, trying to lock eyes as my sole companion in my head is my new cigarette. I need to buy a new pack, but I don’t see any newsagents and I try to avoid him as hard as I can and neither does he speak until we’re a good few blocks down, but I make sure to make a turn away from my flat so that I wouldn’t have Jamie looking at both of us arguing and wondering where would he fit again. “I’m sorry, I really really am.” He says, going in front of me and I just stop, thankful that apparently the afternoon didn’t seem to hit anyone, besides the few open local businesses, but everyone’s head is still between someone’s legs apparently or with faint traces of last night’s oral under a pillow. I glare at Alex, even before he utters it and I roll my eyes. “I’m straight.”I’m not one to judge one’s sexuality, but I laugh in his face as he just pales up. “Congratulations, your gay jokes were about your own fear.” I laugh darkly, wondering if I should’ve brought Jamie into this, he could’ve done some more sarcastic remark and observed Alex just to tell me that I still got a good shag, apparently. I shouldn’t be liking someone who won’t simply like me back regardless of the reasons, the end product of nothing mutual would still exist, because it becomes useless and sometimes it takes much more than half the time to kill, that it will continue nipping the fingers and firing up because there is regret from doing too much and spoiling or not doing enough and that’s why crushes sting because the past was never fully received and there are too many mismatches when it comes to the actual relationship.His silence seems to feed me with the fact that he whirls with me until we reach the sea and I smoke the last cigarette with him, as he just watches me, slowly smiling and I don’t want him to flirt with me and we seem to hold too much comfortable silence, which is odd because I’m used to Jamie’s and Brian’s constant chatter. Then we just turn around and I feel my blood boil less, it’s his fault and his sexuality to doubt, his girlfriend to cheat on. Maybe I do let him back in, but for a short while, I tell myself as he blushes as we head back into the flat, cigarettes bought in haste and we silently enter to hear the telly and Jamie’s presence. Alex would have to get used to this day, if he wants to continue it.“I was thinking... what if it’ll keep progressing and by the end I’ll just end up alone and I’ll just dettach from him?” Is what I hear from Jamie, half-way through the cigarette, before he turns around to face both me and Alex. I wonder if two gays is too much for the quiff-less lad. “Holy shit.” Jamie says, cigarette in mouth, blowing the smoke out, looking at Alex. “Can I fuck you?”Alex widens his eyes. I break out in a smirk, but I quickly flip Jamie off.“I get it, Hince, we’re leaving.” I mutter, as I poke Alex on his shoulder so that he faces me and I just feel my blood go up a bit to stroke my cheeks as I look into his deep dark eyes. I see Jamie smile at me sadly from the corner of his eyes and I just step back from Alex, making my way into the small kitchen, observing Alex left in the corridor. The flat is far too small, living room divided by the pans and shelves to make a kitchen. But then sometimes you don’t choose the best alone and sometimes the best isn’t given and you wonder if the thirties will hold a better salary as promised. I hear Alex introduce himself anyway, as Jamie just mutters his name, as I see him still interested in Alex, but his desire getting toned down, his thought most likely already poisoned by Brian as usual. I bring all of us tea, as I sit down next to Jamie, facing Alex as I quickly ruffle through Jamie’s hair as he doesn’t even groan much, nearly picking up the mug.Alex looks at me confused, but I don’t explain anything. I could play tricks and he would never know. I scratch my head and I wonder how much do I even show of my life which is mostly solving Brian and Jamie’s fallouts if I’m not alone, while behind closed doors is just a mixture of work, cigarettes and self-doubt wrapped in all the seasons which come and go and slowly touch the apartment's interior and maybe smell either of pumpkin or mint which Jamie would end up bringing. He would always bring peppermint candy canes because he’d buy a bunch for himself and he would end up eating half the packet at mine’s anyway, while waiting for his life to be solved when his hands were tied. Maybe this was my way to say that I have better things to do? That I am surely more than not interested in his own problems and I just sit besides Jamie, who glances from Alex from while to while, but I know him too well, Alex would never progress anything from a thought, while Brian would invade everything until they would break up again, that’s when he hesitates and actually does other people until they get back together after throwing guitars at each other beforehand. “So...” Alex clears his throat and it’s as if the universe had forgotten his existence for a while and I see his anxiety reflected in his eyes as he darts from me to Jamie and I sincerly wonder how much has his existence collapsed and it feels awfully weird to actually wonder how much shallow his world once seemed, because for me and Jamie it seemed that there were never walls, our for a good while but we knew who we were, pure denial is a separate thing, but the problem is that is there actually something beyond Alex’s walls or is it where his world ends? “You broke up with someone?”Instead of actually showing some compassion, I interfere, before I actually allow Alex’s sudden change in everything to affect me properly.“He always breaks up, they always break up.” I mutter and Jamie just shoots a glare at me and I’m sure if Alex weren’t here he would have spilled the tea over my trousers and left for a cigarette, coming back, flicking the lighter and just continued with whatever he had been doing and snapped at me for the whole day, but instead a different scenario is resolved with Jamie glaring at me with no tomorrows intended. “Yeah, I did... as Miles softly-” He says softly through his teeth, looking deep into the mug. “said, as usual. We break up too often or rather I reconcile with him far too often.” Alex unlike both me and Jamie has absolutely no evidence of a stubble or a shave for that matter, as I watch him and I wonder when will puberty even crawl up behind his back, as I pretty much am used to shaving myself each morning and if Jamie or Brian are over it’s pretty much a morning shaving party, as if you could put us all three in a row. I try to keep my mind focused and I quickly take a hot sip of my tea, nearly regretting. “Thing is, they’ve been together... for years. Years. Like...” I pause, trying to do the math in my head, even if it’s already written sourly on Jamie’s face. “They’ve known each other since university basically.”I try to make the facts straight before Jamie gets a say, as he doesn’t enjoy speaking of his past when it torments the present. “And that’s when they started dating, so years back, really. But the count is off, because they get on, then off and again.” I think what would I say behind Jamie’s back and if I should say it out loud. I scratch my head, watching Alex who seems to be on the edge of his seat, as if he were discovering a sex talk for the first time in his life. I just glance at Jamie, who is nearly dipping his nose inside the tea. I don’t know how comforting my words will even sound. “It’s more of a question if two people are highly compatible how much would you take?”I ask the question and Jamie just looks down and Alex just pulls his knees to his chest, putting the mug aside on the small table. Jamie looks up at the one-night stand I had and I quickly shift gaze from one to another, wondering. “I had a girlfriend. Well, we seemed compatible, we dated... I’m guessing, not as long, but it was... it seemed compatible, but once you try to live alone, you realize... that you’re not actually that compatible. That you just tell yourself that three days of happiness are worth five weeks of misery and even the happiness, did you... bring it or was it actually your partner?”I see Jamie’s shoulders shake and I just sit besides him, but he calms down and just solely nods. I take and stick a cigarette between his lips, as he raises his eyes to glance at me. Brian is surely an asshole, but even if the question has always been on everyone’s lips, the longer the rubber stretches, the harder it is to actually let go for the pain to inflict, to be willing to no longer have it in your hands even if you’re aware of the hit. He won’t admit it, it’s a decision only poison can help you choose and decide or until you collapse. Dead, preferably than paralyzed to stare at a non-existent sky. I put my arm around Jamie’s shoulder, as he lights the cigarette and I decide that there’s no running away from someone smoking in the apartment since there’s three smokers, someone had to start, so Alex shyly takes a cigarette and I join up as last as I push Jamie onto my shoulder and he just smirks, watching Alex, I presume. “I’d date Jamie, but we’d kill each other, so we’re not dating.”“I’d fucking kill you.”“Exactly.” I smirk and rub his shoulder as he slowly exhales the smoke, cigarette in mouth and I glance at him to see his eyes closed and most likely canning himself up with all the thoughts which could ever trouble him, so that they would paint dark swirls and turns for him to escape in a more horrid misery just to understand that sometimes reality is the escape from one’s emotions and attachments. I kiss Jamie’s top of the head, as he just grunts and I glance back at Alex who tries to blink away some thin curtain of jealousy, but I catch it and I just keep my gaze at him, but it’s only for a mere moment before he shifts back to look at Jamie and I look back down, even if I feel a bit lighter, but I still know his walls are shallow.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
It’s the lock of fear and the roll of the dice with anxiety and my own trust and recklessness which should be the one taking hold, but it doesn’t leaving me with a crisp sane mind to see Alex who seemed to shrug off the homophobic show for Jamie, yet still remains the leftovers of the latest fetish in the scene apparently which is a cult of fucking straight men, but the problem is if the walk of shame didn’t work, how far do you even go? And the initial sex appeal wears off and the porn doesn’t work anymore.And it’s as if Alex is a dinosaur among queer men and me and Jamie would sit wondering sometimes a bit too drunk if people honestly considered themselves straight. And I’m sure we even look at him a bit too weirded out as we all hail in silence, the television still on. And frankly some things don’t seem to make sense, like why he’s still here or maybe I’m just too daft and all the world is queer after all. I keep looking at him until he raises his dark eyes at me and then I just glance at Jamie to cool off and remind myself that it’s still about him. The offices opposite me have a palm tree and by their light and activity that’s how Jamie would understand the actual time, who was walking around to cure their sleep and stay awake to make sure the illusion of getting robbed was solely in their head.And Alex’s carefullness seems to give both of us a slap of reality, that to him we are indeed deviant in our own ways, as if he were in this appartment for the first time, as if it were truly something new even if we had sex last night and just like a person can change overnight, so can they change back and I wondered how much would he even dip his feet now. What were the motives now? Was anything even worth it?I wish we were forever in a post-coital state where we believe. But instead we are left in the cumbersome grotesque reality where I forget that some people don’t even believe in me. But then, he doesn’t seem to fiddle with his thinking regarding his girlfriend, even if he had fucked around and maybe he would be a bit better for Jamie? Would that mean I am solely handing him over? Would that mean that he’s just the straight guy who people happen to fuck around with? I won’t say it wasn’t hot and I wonder if the cult of straight men is like some fucked up virginity cult we queer men seem to have lately. It is a category and maybe even considered a “fetish”, well, it is fucking a virgin of sorts, so maybe it’s just as fucked up. It was hot, but nothing like it would’ve been different from fucking a queer man, just someone with a lack of experience perhaps, but in the end fetishes are still in our minds, what we think we find hot or what we do find hot, rather. It’s attraction and attraction can be more than fucked up. “Either way, I’m back to the dating pool, I guess.” Jamie sighs, tapping against his mug as Alex just looks at us and I wonder if we are the dinosaurs to him. He looks uncomfortable with his own curiosity and perhaps expired fear, since now we no longer seem something scary or a subpressed desire. We are the desire accomplished. I wonder if he even thought of fucking us both, since sex is more than a strive here among all these heads. Alex seems to muse out and I just look at him, nodding, asking what’s on his mind and he just runs a hand through his morning hair. Maybe the walk of shame wasn’t a walk after all but a stumble and I wonder if I would ever get to touch him again or I’ll be crossed out as harshly as if I were an ex and never spoken of, if he goes back to solely being straight and stating such. I always wondered how do all those girlfriends feel, do they get some gut feeling? Recalling Arielle, I presumed not. Jamie looks at me, still sunken, but his own curiosity looking at Alex, before I realize he decides to drop his attempts, even if Alex had seemed appealing.“Ok, I’ll head off, I’ll kick Brian’s things out.” My friend states, standing up and before I open my mouth, he just shakes his hand, making a few steps to the already near corridor. “Don’t bother, Miles, it’s ok. He can stay at Stefan’s or whoever he’s fucking or trying to commit in some fucked up ways.”He pauses, putting on his coat.“I don’t mind if he’s polyamorous, it’s more about him lying, really.” And he pushes the door open, waving at us, eyes still looking down. I remain quiet until we’re sure he had left. “You sure, Miles, you can head over to help him.” He says quietly and I see him tense up. I wonder if he wants to leave to Arielle already and maybe the walk of shame is a delayed run and I wonder how much would I even see him again, even if we had managed to get some friends and end up at the same goddamn party. I wonder what would’ve happened if I fucked him on the sheets of the same said party. I expect him to stand up, just like Jamie did, instead he feasts on his own silence and none spoken words. I hope I don’t look hurt and desperate enough. Fear is now my cradle. “You can head back... to Arielle.” I state, I don’t even know why I even bothered to mention her name, but I do anyway, feeling a shiver and frankly the downside to fucking straight men, they’ll go back to their girlfriends or lovers, doesn’t matter, you’re always second unless they happens to be a proper open relationship and no hierarchy among partners and you happen to fall under another lover or boyfriend. “No, I’m ok.” He shrugs. “I’m sure she presumes that I would take a while, anyway.”Alex holds the pause and takes out a pack of cigarettes. “I’m sorry for walking out on you.” He holds the silence again. “I’m just... I’m not really inetrested in being gay-”“You don’t necessarily have to be exclusively gay, you do realize that?” I ineterrupt, reminding of his fucked up thinking. I get angry slowly, as if regretting that I even fetched him, that I had allowed him in and the whole act in front of Jamie was perhaps to get some other gay guy to fuck his brains out, since that what he seems to be lacking in his fucking relationship. “Like, I said... being gay-” I close my eyes and he continues. “I’m just... not interested.”“Yet you still had sex with me.” I rant. “It’s not about orientation, I don’t give a shit what you identify as, you still had sex with a man, you do realize that, don’t you, Alex?”I feel my voice being an inch away from getting properly raised. “Maybe you’re right, maybe I should leave-” He states coldly, puting the mug which seemed to be in his hands until now. I feel my chin shake lightly and I keep my eyes closed and I open them to see him avoiding my gaze and as if speaking to the window, lie to himself. “Yeah, have fun. Knock yourself out, fuck Jamie next. Since you seem to be very into sex between two men. Or maybe just fucking log in Grindr, you’ll have a bunch of guys down your pants once they hear that lie of yours. And maybe all of a sudden, you’re not so fucking straight now, are you?” I snap, digging my nails into my skin, as he just turns to look at me. Neither of us starts a fight even if it’s taste is vivid in the air like an old hallucination and resolution. Alex pushes me harshly on the floor and goes on top of me.Fuck.“Go on, tell me now you don’t want me.” Alex is pinning me down and I can feel him hard against me. Fucker. My hands are pinned down, so all I can do is raise my head and kiss him. He bites my lips back, moaning, defying himself as our tongues rub harshly against each other and he even bites too hard, as he lets go of my hands, travelling down to my belt. “I’ll fucking have sex with men, if I want to.” He pauses. “You in?”He undoes my belt, but doesn’t go further than that and it’s more than ridiculous with me with a full-on boner stating that I don’t want it at all. He grabs my chin, leaning in and breathing against my already swollen lips.“Like you said... A bunch of men would be interested in fucking a straight guy. Doesn’t matter if I’ve fooled with others.” He hisses, eyes closed and licking my lips.“I dunno, you seem awfully eager to be fucking me specifically, Alex.” I state, playing fire with fire. I put my hand on the back of his neck, pulling him closer. We kiss without saying anything, solely grinding harshly over the fabric that Alex touches the pre-cum stain on my underwear, grinning as I just push his jeans down. “You’re the one fucking the said straight guy, though. Mind you, cheating. All scores, Miles.” He smirks, stroking my cock over the fabric, now sitting up before he pulls the underwear down and takes me painfully turned on and starts stroking as I just bite my lip, holding the moans down, still ticked off and frankly eager to keep torturing both of us to the point of no return. But then, we’ve reached it. We’ve fucked up. “I’m not the one with the fucked up conscience.” I snarl back, grinning, giving out a moan, as he strokes harder and he smirks, as I close my mouth, back to biting my lip. Alex stops stroking and before I can protest, he catches up on his distractional line of thinking. “Tell me your fantasies.”“What the fuck? Can’t we just keep... fucking?”“I want to stay longer.” He shrugs. “Let’s hold a conversation.”“With hard erections? I thought we were fucking around, not a fucking relationship.” Alex ignores the last bit, looking up and I wonder how the fuck does his underwear even still covers his dick. I shrug and he motions for me to talk. “I dunno, I wanted to fuck a pizza guy. Why?”“Isn’t that like cruising?”“No, cruising is like when Brian dumped Jamie and next day was asking people near the bathroom ‘wanna fuck’. It’s a bit different.” I pause, he seems intrigued. “I dunno, I just watched this awful porn, back when I thought I was interested in women-”He snorts.“Anyway, this guy was a pizza boy and this woman fucked him. I never bothered to check porn on it, but I guess that’s what crawls in the back of the mind.” I pause. “Like how the fuck do you even do that? I don’t even want to. I’d be too creeped out on both sides, so.” I pick it up. “Can we fuck now?”“No.” He starts thinking, yet he traces fingers down my stomach, wanker. I bite my lip harder, also not bothering to properly do anything, clutching the rub under my hands and I see Alex’s eyes check as if I am as sexually frustrated as I seem. He lowers his head and sticks his tongue out to slowly start licking me. I groan, clutching harder. Morals out of the window. He stops, grinning at me. “I think we should order a pizza to make your fantasy.” And he reaches out to his jeans. I sit up.“You’re going to wait half a fucking hour? How the fuck are you even holding?” I moan, crossing my legs and shifting my weight unto my arms, trying to relax with my fucking dick nearly up in the air. Alex just flips at me as he starts looking for the number. I blink. “Can we not have a threesome with the pizza guy, please?”“Who said we’ll be using him. We just need the fucking pizza and it’s a good idea, anyway, pizza after sex, before we both doze off.” He mutters, now putting the phone against his ear, shaking his leg, at least I’m not the only sexually frustrated. I feel even more turned on by looking at how the situation frankly is in his underwear, so I try to concentrate on the fucking ceiling instead and I nearly bite to blood as he slowly sits next to me and starts stroking my cock. The order is done and I try to dislocate my mind, so that I wouldn’t be thinking, but he only sees it even more as a game and goes down, slowly taking me in his mouth. I hear him gag.“Relax your throat.” I mutter, as if teaching him as he gives me a thumbs up. I moan, before he takes me out of his mouth, now biting his lip. “You’re honest going to wait for the fucking order?”“Yup.” He’s oblivious to my groaning and to tick him off, I grab my phone and frankly the only person I can even text is angsty Jamie, who I’m not sure I can help at the moment and he would be travelling to his apartment now anyway, so it wouldn’t help by reminding him of what awaits him and he’s more of a sole person unless he wants to speak out, but he’d always listen to you. Besides sexual frustration I have honestly nothing to tell. I press the phone against my lips, wondering if I am even allowed to dress up. It dawns on me. “What is your sexual fantasy then...” I quickly resume to add something to my left question. “Or any of them, really.”“Fuck a guy. Isn’t that obvious?” He smirks, scrolling on his phone, as well, still in his boxers, now sitting besides me on the floor. I’m the only one fully naked. Alex raises his dark brown eyes to look at me. My breath stops slightly, I wonder how the fuck he even manages to be so striking, when he looks younger than the age he is given by the time he’s lived, I wonder what had even went on in all the time he’s been here. I wonder how his school years went and even the daft stories with girls. “No, you’re as cloudy as a rainy day.” I smirk back, twisting my own words with hesitation if I should even be laying with him, here, as I can’t seem to pull my eyes down, as he holds them. I wonder what would the actual thoughts running through his head be. What is it that actually holds him down? How does he feel with cheating on his girlfriend? How come he’ll be able to pick her in my arms? I wonder how bad has his poetry been in the high school years? “Anything else?”Perhaps cheating?I’m still the one allowing him to use me as a tool to break Arielle, unless he decides to open the relationship, which seems something far too away of a concept for straight couples, even if my own gay friends are entangled in the struggles of denial. Alex still seems to be thinking on my question for a bit, but then just shrugs and I feel like we are perfect for those commercials which state that communication is dead. Being with Alex just highlights how alone I feel and how much I don’t let anything hint that I might actually be missing a significant other, like renting a small apartment not to feel space where someone else could be. Being alone is admitting that you have a problem with yourself because you can’t glue yourself together, because there is no point in holding yourself together in any damn way because everyone who you know will leave and our silence feels as bad as being lone. “I don’t know.” He shrugs, lifting his arms up to scratch them. “That was always the main one, crawling in the back of the mind, but I never really tried to push it. I wouldn’t have it if I haven’t followed you-”“So I was the catalyst in your dipping into the queer pool, adventure then?” I smirk, raising my eyes from the phone. Alex just grins back at me and I wonder which one of us is the devil on the chessboard here. He holds the pause, scrolling in his own phone awkwardly, before putting it down and lying besides me, against his arm, watching me. I notice that nothing is really on his phone anymore and he just pulls me into another kiss. It’s not even a kiss of life or lust, it’s something much more destroyed, shattered and seems to hold a lack of a moral edge as Arielle quickly jumps through my mind as he pins me down, lower, as we start making out, his hand against my cock again and instead I take his hands and push them behind Alex just to hold them together. I had some handcuffs somewhere but it’s as if I am the one needing them, as I thrust my hips lightly against his, rocking them sweetly, Alex moaning as my other hand goes into his boxers, pulling them off.I push Alex to be under me, as he grins against the kiss, moaning audibly as I start stroking his cock, slowly making my way down with harsh kisses and bites which leave him wincing, his hands let out to grasp anything, which happens to be the rug underneath and my short hair with no avail. I trace my fingers up to his nipples as I squeeze each before taking his cock in my mouth and pressing the fingers back against the skin, as he moans louder. The fucking bell rings. I jump up, as Alex groans, banging his fist against the floor, as I quickly pull on my jeans, taking the other end of the rug and covering him in it.“Fuck you, revenge, asshole!” I say, stepping over him, as he grabs my leg and I shake it off, making my way shirtless to the pizza. The pizza guy doesn’t seem to catch my eye as Alex does wrapped in the IKEA rug on the floor, naked and hard. I swallow, quickly glancing back, as I make sure that the hole between the door and me is minimal, as I just stretch out the banknote, the guy handing the pizza over and I tell him to keep the tip. Alex has his arm over his eyes. I grab his jeans. I don’t really have a Domino’s snapback or t-shirt. I quickly head into my room and grab a random white polo. I shouldn’t be kicking someone out into the cold in a shirt and I hope the guy is gone already.“Go freeze your balls off, pizza boy.” I grin and Alex just groans, not even bothering to put on underwear under his jeans. It’s not like it’s even gonna stay long there anyway. I quickly peek out to see if the pizza boy left, before I push out Alex outside, as he already shivers from the open door as I seem to be pumped with this ridiculous idea, as I throw him outside. I close it and before Alex even gets the chance to knock, I yell at him.“Don’t! We need to make it realistic, I need to be rock hard, wanker!”“Oh, you’re suggesting for me to fucking jerk off in the cold then too?” I hear Alex’s muffled noises and I’m sure everyone gets a taste of some queer morning now, with Alex in a white polo and a pizza box, no sweater, no nothing and snow being something delayed on the menu these days. “Sounds hot!” I yell back, guessing that he’s groaning now and shifting from foot to foot, the pizza box being a deluxe heater now. “That wasn’t the fucking fantasy, deal with this one, first!” Alex groans, now banging against my door.“Oi, oi, pizza boy, calm down otherwise no one is even going to eat the pizza, let alone the crust!” I smirk, actually starting to touch myself but it’s not much of a hard deal to do with the fact that me and Alex were making out a while ago. I get too turned on by thinking of pinning Alex down and riding him. I open the door.Alex hands me the pizza over. I’m shirtless and we stare at each other as if we’ve never had sex before and I see how lost he looks and yet consumed by touching desire. The man knows the sins he’s committing, willingly. I seem more shallow than I expected myself to be. I pretend to open my wallet, as Alex still shifts from foot to foot. How much does it take for one to break the reality they had built? I wonder what tips what over and I pull him against me, kissing him, as Alex first doesn’t kiss back, confused, before opening his lips under mine, easing in my touch, kissing softer, feeling something rather harsh dissolve into something far more extended than we had both expected, I get scaredconfusedfreakedoutI break the kiss. I try to use Arielle as the catalyst now.I shouldn’t be the one backing outfrom something tender, yet I do, going down on my knees. “Sorry, I’ll tip you properly.” I grin and take his cock out, mocking surprise as I lick the underline of his cock, looking at him in the eyes, as he just watches me mesmerized. “You came prepared.”“No, actually.” He smirks, as I close my eyes and take all his length in my mouth, slowly. “You see, I’m not into men.” Alex continues a satire of himself, grabbing the hanging coats behind him, moaning, thrusting against my mouth, as I gag lightly, digging my nails into his hips, getting harder and eager, frankly desperate for Alex. My mind shuts down, pulled apart.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Waking up is claustrophobic when you know the streets, the sheets and perhaps not the person right besides you as the memory replays sex in loops and loops and specifically when his cock is in you mouth. He moans awfully loudly, thrusting, as I keep my throat relaxed, starting to stroke myself. I wonder if I should let him off easily, but I don’t, letting his slide hard and painful out of my mouth. I ache for him inside me. I stand up and press our cocks together, both of us wincing. He’s not tested. Fuck fuck. I recall the guy who was in a gang-bang with his ass full of cum from twenty different men. Fuck. Fuck this. I kiss him harder, as I get his hand and he strokes me.“Please fuck me, pizza boy.” I smirk, as Alex doesn’t hold and sticks two fingers insides me harshly, I wince, turned on, moaning against his neck, as he sticks them in and out. “Fuck you, feels so good.”“It’s going to feel better, Miles.” I have to take his hand out, just to drag ourselves to the bedroom. I go on fours and still decide to use a fucking condom until the wanker gets tested, as I throw one at him, lube as well. I hope pullouts isn’t the only thing he’s done in his life. Desire consumes all thinking and fear, allowing only actions to take over the mind in a sexual manner, as all leads to an accurate separate conclusion. I am still partially surprised that he manages to put it on. I feel entirely intoxicated as I feel his lips against the back of my neck and I feel as if anxiety comes and goes, as I know who he is and what we are doing and it feels as if I am getting thrown my fantasy right in the face, all of the implications of it, of how it is to actually be fucking a straight guy who makes sure to state explictly that he’s straight without any pondering on his sexuality and keep it all under wraps.“Put your hand around my neck.” I beg him as he inserts a finger against inside me, as I let out a heavy breath, allowing him to tease me further, as he licks my neck, slowly positioning himself, but still continues to finger me anyway. He stops as the request. And lack of knowledge is one of them. I sigh, heavily turned on. “Jesus, you’ve never had that?”I look back at him, but he does as I ask and it’s a bit too harsh, before he loosens, trying to understand the mechanisms, as I get more turned on by feeling at his disposition, my mind ticking in insane ways. He spreads me and slides in, lubed up, holding me harsher by the neck, as I hold my breath. “You see, I’ve never fucked a guy before.” He lies, pushing me harsher to him, bending over me entirely and slamming in me as deep as Alex can, as pleasure keeps rocking back and forth through my body, as he starts going in and out of me, holding my breath and biting either my neck or my shoulder, digging himself deeper and out, every fucking time that it becomes a slow, pleasurable, building up tension which I start praying would never end as he slowly gets the speed and by his breath I start feeling that he’s not going to last long and I gasp louder, as his grip increases on me and he looses it.Alex keeps thrusting inside me in and out, as he starts coming and I get too turned on and over the edge, as I gasp, shouting out as pleasure takes over me and we do the last thrusts on the wave of pleasure, as it strangles us and then lets loose, as I just fall on the bed, wincing at the sudden choice of move as Alex gets out of me, I wince again, realizing how harsh we had done it and my neck a bit sore, as I roll on my back, Alex laying red faced and catching his breath besides me, wiping sweat off his forehead and he pulls the condom off, tying it, opening his eyes, a bit embarassed to look at me.I feel a bit odd as well, just like you feel when you’re watching a porno and it’s over. Our silence seems to mutilate us and neither we are touching and I feel my back ache lightly. And I wonder for some reason of the condom/cinderella shoe analogy in Fight Club for some unholy reason, but I keep it to myself, as I look down, to see how frankly the fluid is still there, reminding that I’ll need to shower it off. I sigh out loud as Alex pokes the condom and then muses for a bit where to even put it. “Just put it on the floor, I guess or bedsheets, don’t bother.” I say and I hope it doesn’t sound as harsh as I had thought and he just drops it on the floor and I get my anxiety back with realization that if you’re just fucking, it’s just fucking and there’s nothing afterwards. I don’t even know with which words should I even speak, because I feel as if I have none, because it’s odd to see him just stand up and leave again, if he will, because he gets the easiest stick of them all, he wouldn’t have to get kicked out of home just like Jamie did or I wouldn’t have to drop education because the bills wouldn’t be able to be paid. He just goes on with his life, playing someone else at some point but never really truly feeling at what it is to be a gay man, really, because he isn’t one and because it will be easier and he will never have to struggle, besides juggling a secret which will easily be rubbed off unlike all of us left, wondering where does our life even begin, as we are getting mugshots to remind ourselves that there is everything wrong with us and the light blinds us, because it wants to. Or those who ran away and were never found even by themselves, so it becomes a question of fairness and why does it happen and should I even be pissed off?It becomes more of a question is it pity of the self or is it actual trying to show some self-care and it becomes that many stories are forgotten, that many incidents are just shoved away because no one seems to be interested in something which cis women see as abomination or cis het men see as something wrong, flawed, the problem is that it starts stripping off not only the sexuality, but gender just because there is no desire to participate in a love we would never care about or some masturbation we could be doing along and as the years went by, the hate sometimes flutters down, but it’s still hard with recalling a bunch of words said or listening to Stefan even shrug it off about his parents, it becomes the taboo topic, which Alex would avoidIt becomes a passerby with immunity.It becomes the person who sees it all and only gets inner turmoil, perhaps when we don’t.I want to kick him out at first, as he keeps his silence to himself, but I just feel frustrated and I wonder how do you even speak of it, if you’re the one getting turned on by a fucked up fetish only to wake up next morning and realize how fucked up over you’ve become, that all the shows you watched wanted you dead and Alex had uttered jokes which could’ve possibly trailed onto some slur me or Jamie might’ve heard on the street or could be a replica of words we’ve both heard or Brian had to yell back against at his father. So is it even sleeping with the enemy and for what purpose? Is it great reckless sex?But it always narrows down to the if you have chemistry with the person, but you can always be angry, anger is always justified, as I recall Jamie stating that he’s angry on more than different occasions, specifically when he has mania and it’s awful when he comes to mine’s, just that he’s not alone, whenever he’s off with Brian or Brian once had to visit his parents, a ticket bought and Jamie had no intentions of seeing them and it was agreed that I would take care of him, Brian telling me all the dos and don’ts and I remember thinking that Jamie was lucky to have someone who cared of him so much and Brian had been back the next day, banging on the door and Jamie in his arms.I try to push thinking far back, as I look at Alex, musing on some future and where would I even stand, I’ve even grown to liking being more alone than ever, feeling uncomfortable and feeling that Jamie and Brian storming in on me whenever and every week or so was enough and now I knew that I wouldn’t kick Jamie anywhere because when he had just started off with Brian, that’s when I had told my parents, there was this trend that everyone had to come out, there was this motion, which both me and Jamie had done.And it was one of those mistakes where everyone who was out and miserable, everyone who had already been kicked out and settled for ages, decided to speak out and tell you that it’s ok even if their children hadn’t talked to them in years, that their partners were gone, that their friends had vanished but they were happy now, that now was the time and it even felt like a task to say. Even if I had seen Jamie, who had come out a few years before, he had been drunk and said that it was my choice, but seemed that mine would slip, we were going somewhere, that all could be done, that all could be done, that I could come out.No one really talks about people from middle class which get kicked out, people forget that many youths didn’t even know the value of money until they were kicked out, forcing to crash at other’s and I remember shaking at Jamie’s house, who they had assumed was my boyfriend and told me that he was a bad influence a week before, because then everyone would think that I was gay.I was gay.And speaking things which escalated into more silence and then shouting how I would never give grandchildren, how everything I did was wrong, how I was showing that civilization was falling, that being gay became some trend and how come I had wanted to become a woman then, how come everything was wrong with me.And you’re shoved outside. And I couldn’t even go back to university the next day and as summer passed, looking for jobs it dawned on me that I wouldn’t be able to do anything, Jamie helping me with everything he could, triggered by my own parents and I recall both of us sitting in his small tub, an apartment similiar to the one he had been renting, a bit before he had met Brian and we had looked at each other, entirely drunk and forgotten, feeling as if there was nothing left at my feet.“I won’t continue university.” I felt as if all the future I had was taken away from me, even the lie that I could simply continue English Literature was taken away from me, I wouldn’t be able to do anything myself, I wouldn’t be able to starve myself either just for the idea and desire that people would care enough to care about some gay guy’s illusions and sexual fantasies on paper. “Your call, Miles.” Jamie had decided to continue, but I figured there was no point and I started sobbing. The water didn’t seem relaxing anymore to either of us it seemed and I wondered what the fuck was even going on with us, I couldn’t make out of anything and I just remembered how much I wanted him just to silence me and he looked at me and I realized that if we were to do something, it would’ve been wrong at the time we would’ve and I just dunked myself further underwater, that Jamie tapped my shoulder as a reminder for me to breathe and for the months we lived together I wondered what the fuck keeps people who get along together until he was drunk one day and told me that sometimes he’s awfully daft, that he’s awfully daft and sometimes doesn’t see when people like him and it takes him ages to want someone and it has rarely happened to him, most of his attempts which like mine were with women we hadn’t wanted. Mine mostly, Jamie would just wiggle himself out of them. “I guess I’m just demisexual. I really don’t think I’m a gray asexual. I just can’t seem to get connections going far too easily.” He had told me and I had watched him, the mornings were he would look like a total mess, unshaved for a few days and his hair curly, something I hadn’t realized until I had moved in with him, as I sat at his for the first few days I would watch him shave, realize how fast his facial hair grew, how he would blow dry his hair and sometimes apply make up, a bit embarassed as I’d watch and then he would just sit next to me besides me in the bathtub and I wondered if I should just let it slip.And I did.He soon enough met Brian, who started showing up at our doorstep all the time and was smitten with Jamie, as he felt a bit uncomfortable with me at first and even asked me once when we headed outside for alcohol, if I loved Jamie and I just shook my head, feeling my cheeks heat up lightly as the shorter man watched me, narrowing his eyes, it’s odd to think of a time when me and Brian didn’t get along too well and now we don’t again, I don’t think we will. We never do when he and Jamie are off. “He’s just fucking daft, mate, I’m telling you. Just... give him time.” I said as before he stayed outside smoking, tapping his platforms on the pavement, watching everyone walk by as I felt a bit uncomfortable in store and I wondered what had Jamie’s own thoughts been then, as I never decided to ask him then, I just figured he would ask me when the time would come. As we walked back to the apartment, I sighed, saying that Jamie was demi and all and could take a while.Brian still confessed the two weeks after that and I would sneak out of the apartment, Jamie just shrugging as Brian would ask Jamie to play guitar for him and what they would do or talk about would be left in their minds only as I would just roam around town, feeling a bit freer, maybe because Jamie had started to find someone who he had liked.I wondered if I had loved Jamie just because he had taken me in and we were the only ones who didn’t venture away from each other or was it because I really did love him and what is the wrong love anyway.And Brian had stayed one night, when I was falling asleep and I had dreamt of Jamie properly, waiting for Brian to leave for his own lessons, as Jamie had gotten back from walking Brian off to his classes and he had been wearing a lazy hoodie, his hair a mess, a stubble and it was a different way of seeing him and he had been grinning, apologizing and I just felt something either tear or build up inside me. And we’re all daft, because we’re scared of ruining nothing.Because we’re scared of losing the people we’ve held on long enough. Because we’re so used to never touching them. We kept looking at each other, as if we had both known, as if we would have shared a kiss, but we never did. “I just want you to know... that you mean a lot to me.” He had said out, quietly and softly. Jamie looked down, zipping up his hoodie. He looked up, trying to find more words, but sometimes you don’t have to confess to be obvious. “Same.”“So you and Jamie are platonic or what?” Brian had asked me once, when he was staying over and I had been moping and it had started to get a bit weird, that I hadn’t had a boyfriend and Brian and him had just gotten back together. “I don’t know, honestly.” I answered honestly and fast before I could be taken away with his question. “I really don’t want to venture on you two admirers, but whatever you guys... Fuck this, maybe friendship does exist. But you do want to fuck his brains out.” Brian said pointing his coffee mug at me. “Aren’t a bit uncomfortable with it, Brian?” I asked back, fast as he just shrugged, making coffee as Jamie had gotten some ridiculous small job of carrying someone’s items from one house to the other and all week we had joked calling it the break up move, because both parties were far too tense and it seemed a bit too much like a TV show move, without flying knickers, though. “You guys aren’t doing anything, I’m not aware of, so...” He shrugged. “And I know Jamie’s side, which you don’t.”I felt a bit flushed, bit toned down, letting the feelings slide with months now. He smiled at me. “It’s odd, that we’re friends with the current situation.” I smirked. “Well, you are my boyfriend’s best friend, well, I’m addressing how you guys go ‘officially’.” He sat beside me. “Because frankly we all want to fuck our friends, well, unless we’re ace or demi. Jamie’s an ass. I had to fucking spell out that I wanted him up my ass like three times.”“He told me.” I rolled my eyes and Brian laughed with me. I would be lying if I missed Brian already and when they were both on. I didn’t ask for Jamie’s side of the story, though, as I presumed that Brian kept our stories separate that’s what never made sense, why they would go off and Brian wouldn’t talk to me much. Sometimes when they would be off, he would knock on my door and enter my apartment, years on and I remember he would always be in something far brighter as if to hide his depressed side and he would reapply his make-up as he would speak. I would never understand why he would even hurt Jamie. And it seemed that he didn’t have an answer.“You know... when you love so much... you want them gone, because you think that’s what is going to happen anyway. That’s always the reason. No matter what.” He had confessed and hiccuped that I should never tell Jamie that and I mused on it for a few days, wondering if we were all just nervous of hurting ourselves in the end instead of the significant other, because we’re scared of our own break up rather than the other’s pain. Or maybe none of our loves were justified. But the more I watched Brian the more it seemed to lack logic yet have sense. Sense that he was breaking Jamie down and that he was fucked in the head and me and Jamie had forgotten what we had been, even if we would take baths, because feelings flee and lovers venture back.And people leave our lives and it becomes like unfinished novels, as I look back at Alex.The last time they had broken up on Valentine’s and it was ridiculously snowing and Jamie broke down crying on the street, already on the way home, when we had discussed it in a loud gay bar with bad cocktails and he couldn’t stop crying. And I had hugged him.Feelings don’t flee.I sit up to raid for cigarettes as I give Alex the opened box, as if I have cigarettes stashed everywhere. Alex takes one a bit confused.“I love you.” I had told Jamie and it seemed to convey everything I’ve felt.
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Patience becomes more than a virtue it becomes some sort of torturous life obligation where you understand that you have to wait for the other’s person move and all you can do is anxiously think of moves, coming up with the worse possible, throat already attacking you back, all words becoming typos and fear instead of actual lover conclusions as Alex flips over to look at me, properly. The fear of his relaxed state seemed to ghost over me, how he seemed devoted to his beliefs that fear was nothing which would taint him in any way. He sat up, getting a cigarette and lighting it, watching ahead as if we would be graced by people and maybe flashes which would ask us what had we wanted, what were our desires, as if God had decided to make acquaintance and tell us it all. Anxiety becomes even worse, making everything wrecked and shallow, making the future scary from just happening, tomorrow was the painful backbone of today and the fish’s scales. And opening a chest even if nothing is left and the whole chest is a vague memory of feelings long torn years ago and some rubber friendship which had lasted far more than any of us had ever expected with the holes in the theories because we had both thought f actually dancing with our eyes opened and actually touching each other.It was different.There are people who you know which drive you insane and you want all the tastes and those which make you think far too much and you end up hating and those which you don’t and patience is a painful virtue.Watching Alex in his opened state with the idea that this was the second day of us touching and even knowing of each other’s existence taste was fucked up and odd, anxiousI took his cigarette but the lump in my throat didn’t ease and as useless as we were he had kissed me, driving me insane already as I clung onto him, onto the kiss as if I were telling him everything, pulling him closer, playing far too much with his fire, allowing myself to dissolve faster in his water, pushing myself further, Alex moaning against my mouth, holding his hands to himself and reminding of how dull our lives are and how we just build them even more boring and daily ourselves, our desire to make it brighter we end up destroying the precious stones with our own fearbecause anxiety makes you unable to see things clearlyand see, fucking see. I break the kiss briefly, pulling him closer as we both deal with our own anxiety, as I still hold the cigarette and feel his fingers against my cheek, stroking as he pulls me up for a kiss again and neither of us can speak and since we had spoke enough with our bodies, it becomes only natural that the relation remains sexual to the end. And I wonder why seeping things under the rug becomes the new peace for nothing to erupt and we all shy away from some relationship war. Why don’t we ever risk to speak? And what is it that pulls us back always?Why couldn't we say I love you if we've said it once and why do we end up waking away was something like my thinking slogan for months until it faded out entirely and wondering each day why I had given up and which one of us had actually decided to put the coffin of love under the ground for it to rest and suffocate while living and why had we decided on murder.It was as If I would never be able to love again, I guess but then you get a clearer picture when time passes and the passion becomes a daily thing. I like to think that I've seen Jamie look at Brian and that's how I base things. I want to keep it that way, knowing that we didn't love enough since we've killed ourselves.“I met Arielle in a concert, actually... I guess it’s maybe a bit simpler to weed out who is interested in that case.” Alex says, fiddling with the burnt out cigarette in his hands and I realize that it’s just like any other time which is interesting and you talk about which paths you’ve taken and whose mouth you’ve felt against yours whether it was once or in a dream or who you wished you would’ve kissed. And I wonder how long has it even been that it wasn’t someone who I did not know or even shooed out of the bedroom. It had been years just loitering at Jamie’s and watching him with Brian, until he hadn’t been with Brian and I wondered what had I been doing wrong, a few moments of despair when enough sleep starts crumbling sanity, making sure that I wouldn’t have the words with both of us musing silently. And I wondered how come friendship was even a victory. Neither throwing him out of my life being an option, I wondered how come I had thought that we had kissed once, when I had told him I had loved him that Valentine’s Day. I wondered how much had I vividly thought of it that it had messed with my wires, actually strangling me enough with desire to give me vivid hallucinations. But I don’t tell that to Alex, feeling more attached to the young man bizarrely, and I truly hoped it wasn’t because Jamie wasn’t available and because I hadn’t wanted to be with someone who I had seemed to be escaping as a dance partner, even if we’d both be as intimate as we could, only Brian knowing secrets much deeper from thought to feel and depths of anything I could never touch. Anxiety shatters in a moment, because we’re greedy enough to not let ourselves think of things we’ll never get. I still try to shake it off, because apparently we had decided on not to even open the subject, far too scared and it seems friendship was the end game here. Decided. “I guess. It’s not... really like that.” I scratch my eye, flicking the lighter on and off now, watching the flame fast and looking at Alex, who is entirely relaxed now and even stretching quickly as I watch him from the corner of my eye, wondering how much at ease we will ever be and how much does it even spread like butter and how cold it would be next year for that matter. If he would look down if it were to snow. I shake the image of us walking under snow. “You have to be lucky to meet the same person in an empty room. If that’s what you’re really wondering. Gay bars are always empty and boring.”“Really? I always thought they were... jumpy and exciting, like in movies.”“Well, maybe some are. The ones I tried a few years ago had nothing besides good cocktails and well, sitting, thinking that gay people are around you I guess would be flattering at times, when you just come out, but then your life doesn’t really go as ‘this is where I can be gay’, everything becomes a gay location, coz you’re there, really.” I muse on how Jamie spoke out on how he felt a bit homesick. I swallow quietly. “And yeah, it was back where we grew up and all. It’s a bit different now, I guess, as in here and we all cling around or rather under our roofs.”I look at the books which are even on the floor, which I had gotten ordered and couldn’t be bothered to stick in the shelf already filled up with over-read books I could memorize from even my teenage years, there’s not too much gay literature ever anyway, if you search, yeah, you’ll find some and you’ll discard that some as well. “That’s true, but Arielle always ends up doing parties. All the fucking time. It’s like... we can’t even sit on the same table anymore, it’s either Agyness broke up with her boyfriend, or her mom is over, or someone else is over, or someone can’t find an apartment, which is bloody true, but they’re staying over for a month.”“So you guys not fucking or-?”“No.” He laughs. “It’s not that.”Alex looks at me and gives out another short lived laugh.“Jesus, that’s not why I’m sleeping around.” He shrugs, a bit unease from that but his state remains calm oddly, but I brush it off, keeping it at the back of my head, as if waiting for its turn. “It’s more like... we barely do things together.”“So, I’m like the talking prostitute now?” I grin at him and he makes a judging noise, holding back his smirk, before letting it out. “No, fuck no. I can get Jamie or some other gay guy friend you have. Brian, although he doesn’t seem too cheery and I don’t know any of your other friends.” Alex replies, pulling the covers a bit up to his mouth and he pushes the bedding from his lips. “To be honest, they’re my main.” I say, as if excusing myself for my lack of friends which comes from having too much Jamie and his love problems in my life. “Really?”“Yeah.”“Oh.” He shrugs and then quickly catches on. “Nothing wrong with that, just that Arielle has all her memory filled up with pals and whatnot. I’m not used to... just talking to a few people.”“Well, you could have that.” I smirk.“Nah, not with Arielle. I’ll have a fiesta on her fucking funeral and her own ghost dancing.” I smirk to that, wondering how far fetched has he patched their future in his head. I smile at him, wondering how would it even feel like that, my future always seems to be instant noodles and watching some TV show upside down on the couch or wondering which IKEA rug would benefit my inner demons or something snappy.“I never had an ex like that. I’ve always had... introverted people, blokes you have to force to get out of the goddamn bed.” I smirk. “You’d fuck all the time, then?” Alex asks curiously.“Well, depends, more like we’d hang inside or alone, really, I’m not too fond of people and I tend to be single most of the time anyway, I seem to be Jamie’s therapist and once I even sided with Brian and I had to fucking mend that with my best friend.”“What happened?” Alex asks and I think, biting my lip and looking at the dull beige ceiling, wondering how long ago was it that I had glow in the dark stars and how come no matter how hard I try I never end up putting them up there for my own sake of conceiving some scrap of childhood nostalgia. Once I grew up, even if my parents rejected me I still was sad how it felt like to work, I wished I was back in school and didn’t know how much milk would cost and choose any tea promotion for the sake of saving or raiding through sales. It seemed closed and the tin can had its monsters but it seemed safer because I knew I couldn’t escape, while running around without knowing the walls is a bit more than scary at times. “Jamie got very paranoid that Brian would cheat again and he...” I flick the lighter, recalling it had felt like a break up for all three of us and I wondered for a brief while if we were a fucked up triad and it had been the only time Brian had stayed over at mine’s alone. “Broke up with him, really.”“How did Brian take him back, then?”“Brian is a bigger sinner-” I look at him, we have different rational sins, I still flick at the flame. “Y’know for cheating, nothing you’d get.”Alex kicks me under the covers. “You’re in this too.”“I know.” I sigh, scratching my stubble, needing even a lazy shave not to look like a bear, keeping my otter rankings for now. I won’t be able to say anything because we never judge ourselves.“It’s weird... because it takes a while for you to realize that you do love, but you think you love one person, and you actually love another. You love the person in front of you... but they’re not what you thought they would be.” He takes a deep breath. “I do lover her, but I can’t stand it sometimes... But I think it’s always like that with couples-”“I never understood many straight couples, I never understood tolerance.”“It’s different genders.” Alex gives his wisdom.“I don’t think it’s that. I think it’s people settling for crap.” Alex stands up at my words and I don’t bite back on my own stance on why some relationships fall apart. One thing might be that I’m more outgoing than an ex but another is when one can’t stand a third friend party on the couch, I catch my tongue, but all should be agreed. And not a compromise because genders and genders. “We still end up all being the same, I think. Of course, we all have different antics, but we all have the same things in the end, I guess. I mean, we all end up pleasuring each other in a way and we end up being broken by another person. And it ends up being harder to talk, so for instance we all end up checking up on exes, because we can never trust a person who managed to give up on us when we couldn’t. It amuses me how we all end up checking them, no matter how many years passes and you’ll always hear the same heartbroken stories of someone leaving, someone cheating...” He pauses on his and I wonder was it really how hard his exterior was to break down that it was all it took, to end up with someone entirely lost in their desires that they cannot hold anymore and the clay becomes soft in another man’s hands? And Alex goes on. “So why do we check up on them by the end of the day? Is it because we want to go back? Not really, so why do we still check or is it because we reduce the person slowly out of our lives, because just like a death, you can never get over that even if you broke up, that the person doesn’t breathe anymore. But that still rises the fact, is it actually more humane in our heads to simply stalk from afar rather than talk again? But then you could say it’s a plain mechanism, we can say our condolences without the dead speaking back to us, because just like the dead we will never hear their judging and we can fall in love again if we want, because our imagination is the safest form of all.”“Do you check on exes then? To prove my theory.” Alex smiles at me. I muse on it, pulling the bedcovers. I go through my hair, not too keen on revealing myself, which is odd because he had and I even wanted on that and looking at him, I realize that frankly revealing myself would mean that he would reveal himself even more and I’m not really one to speak of myself too much, holding everything inside me, sometimes talking to Brian or Jamie, but never fully to avoid the obvious. “I didn’t date anyone for that long. Like I’ve had here and there, but I didn’t really have some strong connection to anyone, as odd as it is.” I bite my lip and Alex just seems curious, his eyes waiting for some sort of gossip revelation. “I just wanted to sort everything out in my head. I kind of needed to make a living and move out of Jamie’s, coz I didn’t really want to be the third wheel with him and Brian. I would hook up from while to while... But I really had too much in my head. After I moved out, yeah, I dated this bloke... But I don’t really check up on him though.”I raise my hand.“I do approve of your theory, just that I hadn’t lost someone I thought I never would or missed, that’s the thing.” I say and I grab a pillow, hugging it as Alex watches me. I decide to throw the question back at him. “What about you, then?”I smirk, deciding that a mock would take place as my shield and anxiety would let me ride on something else and a shameless cover up. And I do add. “Any girl, then?”Alex smiles, a bit remising. “Yeah, I’ve had a few. So yeah, I do check up on them, it dies off with age and I understand that I don’t want to talk about them or to them, for that matter. But it’s odd because I dated for a good few years, I didn’t have that much on my plate besides my own mind and thinking. It’s odd because one day you’re happy and the next day you want to break up with them, because you can’t stand anything from the way they talk to their TV shows. I guess that’s when I wondered how would it be with someone who has the same interests.”“You could find some girl like that.”“I could, but I guess I didn’t want to.” I see how much he has let his guard down, as if he’s confessing and I feel a bit odd, watching him dissolve in water entirely, as I hold him, wondering how come someone who has never done much besides hold themselves back manages to do that, while I just hold my tongue on everything in this life, wondering all the messes I’ve traced with chalk on the sidewalks, as if labeling my own murders. “Arielle was me trying to forget an ex. I chose someone similar enough to the eye, but enough for me to forget, when you’re scared you do the same thing. Always. I didn’t want to try and be an outcast because I wasn’t even sure I felt that way.” Alex says, reaching for another cigarette and I wonder how many hours have we dawned in smoke and would the night sky be such even colour?“So you thought it would’ve been best if you cheated on her, then?”“Yeah.” Alex says biting his lip. “It’s a lie. At least I think most of the men who say they’re straight and never thought of a man and end up sleeping with one. You’ll always have the thoughts, only someone sure of their indifference will state such things, I think. I remember a friend of my parents was over, when I was about a teenager and he said that David Beckham was hot. I made a joke that he’s gay and he replied that I’m a fool, that he can admire someone because he’s sure of his sexuality, while I need to ponder on mine, because jokes end up covering lies.” He shrugs and blows out the smoke. “And I’ll be denying everything again, tomorrow. Post-coital, you open up, because there’s no anxiety left and you get a sense that because you’ve let yourself get lost in the wonders of someone else, they will listen to everything and never hold a grudge, that all will be lost like the orgasm will become a memory, so will everything else in existence, because we make time exist just to forget people and thoughts.” And he looks at me with his big brown eyes, bewildered from the entire situation and how he had allowed his teenage self to shut up and that had been it.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“Sexuality is a broken compass. You don’t know what north is.” Alex breathes out under the covers and I dream we’re sleeping in a cave and he looks at me, hot air coming out in swirls out of his mouth. “I’m always attracted to men without knowing it.”I wake up and he’s out of the bed, my phone vibrating from texts. I wonder if we love the past where Alex hasn’t been and I’m left alone with my thoughts as I recall when I had first become friends with Jamie, it took me a few years to realize that it wasn’t just friendship which I had wanted from the guy in leather shoes with the stripy t-shirt who walked on stage, covering Captain Beefheart alone, grinding against the guitar, using the beer bottle when it had been illegal to drink and then he had been in trouble and I recall him sitting outside the small school concert we had with everyone wanting to be Britney or Christina, after getting a scolding, his fringe clenching tight onto his forehead as he was smoking outside. He had been my classmate but we didn’t talk as much. It’s odd to think that back then we thought we were into women so we ended up talking on a park bench until the day shifted back from the night in the early hours of around 2 a.m. reminding us of the middle school break. And then next year we sat together, Jamie paying attention as I would only try, wondering how come I never noticed him before. It’s odd that our parents had loved him and that once he’s got a bloke’s tongue down his throat it was over.Maybe that’s why we wouldn’t tell each other we loved because we were scared of coming out again. A small detail that I wished we slept in the same bed. I bite my phone, dreading the texts and Alex’s empty bed side, but at least unlike Jamie he was shagging me and admitting something. And Alex seemed a bit more than the second best. So how many people do we actually love by the end?Only with time you can blow the dust to reveal what had indeed been precious about those moments. And then we can enjoy all the misfortunes we’ve had in a different light and memories feel lighter, because you’ll always remember how drunk you had been that you feel in love rather than how much your heart had shattered the next day in the same region with stale nachos.I feel as if the only way to see Alex is to go to his house again, as memories dunk in black ink, choosing a brighter suit which would cause Jamie to either smoke staring blankly at a wall before grinning or laughing right away, telling me that I looked great and as he would look back at me in the mirror I would go to sleep, thinking that there is a parallel world where we actually love each other, not just platonically because that doesn’t seem to work with me but then maybe it would if I had heard it from his mouth as he would breathe out the smoke instead of vanish for days with Brian to come back when our feelings are rinsed and forgotten and we had forgotten that we were friends. And I muse on while eating breakfast, nothing from Jamie, but I still presume he’s alive, since he’s not really the suicidal type besides a few slips in which I had held his wrists with my hands not to do anything drastic which the whole world might regret when he’d be cold. I text him either way, because it’s always slow in conversation until someone picks up and I figure that since Groundhog Day is one of my favourite movies, let my life be one until I get Alex in my life again, so I shamelessly and perhaps a bit manic decide that it’s fair to head over to Alex’s again. And I go believing that nothing can go wrong and I can confess some love in that brief moment when you think you can confess everything and you know the person and all will be great, Arielle opens the door as usual, shielding her already done face with bigger lashes than usual from the sun. And I wonder if she takes as much as it sometimes takes me dress up and gel my hair from bed hair in the morning and which one is worse after all from bed hair? Wouldn’t it be easier to brush it all off anyway?“Sorry, Alex is working today, I just took a day off for myself.” And she takes her jacket, eyes sparkling with a new idea since I may be the new gay best friend again. Arielle smiles at me and gives me a bit of shivers as she puts her arm over mine. “C’mon, you’re Alex’s friend, I want to be your friend too.”I can see that she’s clearly not thinking that I am fucking her boyfriend or that I don’t want to be her friend at all, but that doesn’t go through the brunette’s mind at all. I decide to play along, as if she were a parent who would show me Alex’s naked baby photos. But then how would Alex feel about this and I think of his lips a bit far too intensely. And I don’t know how he’d feel and I know she would drag me anywhere whether I wanted it or not and I decide to kill time since I forgot that some people have far more strict schedules than deadlines and love. And she’s already out of the door, closing it as if conforming that Alex is really not in the house and I wonder if he had snuck out in the evening and she’s far too relaxed to even think that her boyfriend might be getting pinned by someone else in a different apartment. “Did I ever tell you how me and Alex met?” Arielle asks, grinning and I assume that there is literally nothing I can sneak out to, that she’s set on her mind and I’m one to escape until the deadlines are on. But I’m still misty on the fact that I really don’t know what she’s actually trying to get to here. I shake my head, voicing a no and in that ends up being a motion for her to go on. “We met on a party.”She says but obviously there’s no tone of irony in her voice, because irony can be as heavy as a hammer and comic as one as well in a cartoon and maybe love is a comedy. And her opened topic makes me wonder how had it been for Alex at that time when he had met me. What had crossed through his mind at that point and what had he decided, how much had he lusted for that matter and then I have this faint image of a crying Arielle once she finds out and I wonder how can I even live with this and even head somewhere with her. Or did Alex realize that he had wanted me later on in the night which now in memory I could paint as many stars as I want because memories are always more beautiful than the moment because you forget the scent of anxiety. And how even was it for Alex by the end of the day to fulfill his latest fantasy and how much at stake had it felt or was he solely in a whirlwind of passion at the time and that had been sufficient to kill off any morals and cheat on your girlfriend? And is it fated for you to sin? Does God truly know everything then?“I know this new bakery, I’ve always wanted to try it, is that okay?” She asks me, snapping me back with her done curls. I just nod, wondering what else would she reveal and what else could she say that she would regret, but you open up to people before you know the things they would speak. And the bakery feels a bit too small and surreal, but I assume it has to match the reason that people should go outside instead of buying a cake in the grocery store and it’s overpriced but I only care because I’m still used to complaining about it, but I end up getting some vanilla thing either way with a name called “Fairy” which I text Jamie about, without thinking and it takes only until we sit that Arielle opens her mouth.“Oh, is that your boyfriend?” She asks and I can’t even recall if she’s asked me that before. She takes a bite of her pink and purple looking also fairy cake, but I didn’t get the difference of flavors. I shake my head, but she asks anyway. “So who’s the top or bottom, then?”I widen my eyes, shaking my head, digging the fork into the cake, surprised at the Grindr terminology already.“Actually we’re both vers, as far as I’m aware of and-”“Vers?” She asks, swallowing and already taking her phone to get a selfie with the cake and I only wonder if she’s doing this under some hashtag like girls eat which ends up spiraling discussions which end up being the butt of Jamie’s joke or Brian’s as he would try the hashtags to get a bunch of odd comments which would be looked at under alcohol. “It’s... when you both-” Arielle interrupts me.“Fuck at the same time.” I blink at her reply. “Take turns, whoever feels like what.” I say, wondering why do I end up being some Gay ED teacher only I’m not telling people they’ll have gay sex and die, on the opposite I’m encouraging young heterosexuals to discover they’re not so straight after all. “What if you both want to top?”“You find a compromise, I’m sure...” I was going to say you have it too, but I realize that I have no idea, I’m still living in the fact that all they do is missionary with no foreplay and that somehow doesn’t work and neither do I want to know. I just shrug, hoping she would switch topic. Jamie replies.“Who’s Jamie, then?” Arielle doesn’t stop asking, even after posting and tagging the selfie. “My friend. We’ve never fucked, if that’s what you’re going to ask next.” She just shrugs, as if motioning that she wasn’t when she clearly was. Alex’s girlfriend stands up and sits on the chair next to me, putting the camera in front of us and opens her mouth, grinning as she takes a confused selfie with me in it, chewing. “Aren’t you sad you haven’t fucked your crush though?” She pouts, looking at me and before I protest she looks at me judging. I don’t put much of an act on and I do text him often in front of her, but then as if she doesn’t but Alex is her alibi. And I feel dreadful when people say that spot on and you’ve got to lie somehow, but instead she pauses. “Well, unless he’s straight then don’t go for him.”And she looks at me, dead in the eye, before breaking into a new replaceable smile.“Well, I’d go for anyone who’s good looking, but y’know.” Then she remembers. “And if he’s straight I’ve got a great girl for him. She’s french, lovely, called Valentine, a friend of mine, poor soul broke up recently with her fiancé. She’s -”“Jamie’s gay.” I say. “I don’t think he’d be interested in Valentine, sorry.”I shrug and Arielle, sighs, asking me if I have any straight friends for said Valentine. And I even muse, but me and Jamie had been tight enough to be a married couple for both pair of our parents, allowing them absolutely nothing to the imagination and for some reason we never denied much, believing that perhaps it would be easier to agree with whatever they say just for them to piss off until then only some words would reach us to let us hear whoever had an issue with us, when it came to old school friends but even they drifted off and no one states than anyone barely stays and even your best friend will never become your lover, because you’ll never let anyone in, no matter how dark the night had been and how many records you’ve spun and taken enough alcohol to barely move and you’ll nevernever have the guts to kiss the guy you love. And Brian coming along was easier because then I could lie to myself that all was lost and I knew that once they would break up again I would find my way into Jamie’s bed so in a way I was very and utterly pleased that Alex came into my life so that I wouldn’t ended up conflicting with platonic and just let it be, letting my anger into a small game of darts which Jamie had given to me for some holiday and I had wished that I could touch his face but the most I’ve done is help him shave a side after he had some reckless razor burns once. And that was it with a bunch of broken stars. In a way Alex ended up being more than a shag which I was dragging on so that I wouldn’t fall in love again with the wrong man, which I had loved for a good while now. And she waits for me to finish the cake, as she’s busy following people back and I just feel that I’m not one to go much into a marketing discussion, so I just keep my mouth shut and she still offers to go shopping as she gets curious in which stores do I even go to and it feels a bit awkward as I see her ask me what would I get Alex as a gift and in the end hours pass, that even Alex calls in on her to ask if he could join us. Which makes it even more awkward and I wonder how come he never notices the flush in my cheek as he gives Arielle a quick peck and she darts off, stating that she had decided on Alex’s gift either way, so we had to get out. I told Alex that I had no idea if it would be the hideous snap back or the really bad mustard coloured button up and he just smiled at me. “Hey.” We both ended up saying to each other sheepily and I wondered how many gears had grinded in his head and what the hell was even going on, recalling his homophobic words and looking at him I could barely even recall them and even if he were a harsh eraser how come was he working so well? And he had looked lovely as well and I ignored the vibrating phone in my pocket which was most likely Jamie nagging that he had burnt his cup noodles. And I wondered what was there to even liking a person by the end of the day, was it really some compatibility in sex? What was it by the end of the day or was it really the fact that you could spent time in silence and have it just as meaningful while talking gibberish under alcohol or having the person’s skin under your nails? I muse for a brief while, as we head into another store, as dictated to us by Arielle. And then I whisper into Alex’s ear.“You asked about fantasies, you up for fucking in a dressing room? They’re not too monitored. Even fucking go on your knees if you want to.” And I briefly kiss his neck, as he flinches against me, but grins back, putting his arm around my shoulders, as he randomly grabs a really bad track suit and I grab a few t-shirts and as usual the store only has a few customers trying on some clothing. The mirror is filled with stickers asking for a selfie, but instead he pushes me against the wall, a small thud and we grin, hushing each other as we fumble with each other’s pants and I wonder if sex becomes the drive for love and would sex end up exploding into love and what is that makes you love and how long does it take and is it when you’re love is on his knees?Instead I mock him by throwing a stripy shirt I had chosen on his head, as he made his way to my underwear.“You’d look great in stripes.”“You’re literally saying this moments before I take your dick in my mouth, Miles.”“I don’t give a fuck, I love you.” Without thinking it much, before colour reaches my cheeks and Alex just looks at me up, a bit bewildered, much more colourful than I am and doesn’t say much, as he takes all of me in his mouth all at once and it doesn’t take me too long to get highly turned on that I have to ask him to slow down and looking at him all flushed and shy all of a sudden gives me far too much tender hope, wondering how much I am out of the loop and how easy it is to fall in love with someone who you barely know, because you can fall in love with the person they wish they are and maybe help them to become that and find yourself and somehow that becomes love.And I feel terribly guilty for saying it, but I’m so near from his mouth, his fingers stroking the skin of my hips, soft moaning and a bit of gagging when he takes me in too fast when he’s booming that I end up coming is his mouth, cussing out loud, apologizing, but he manages to swallow with a very sour face and I just make out with him, wobbly legged as I press him against the wall.“I’m sorry.” I say and he knows what’s it for. And he just shrugs, a small grin appears for him to say something cheeky, but instead he just keeps quiet, shrugging and pressing my lips against his own again as I make my way into his underwear, feeling how hot and turned on he is that it only takes a few strong strokes and my had is all sticky and his breath is all lukewarm, spilling against my throat filled with bites now. We don’t say anything, a fantasy turned far too much into some crystal castle, but we remain silent holding each other in our arms, wondering when would midnight strike if it even would at all.
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I wonder if you can count all the stars if you keep your eyes closed enough, if you could miss all the pearls circling through the skies and somehow emit love. I still couldn’t bring myself down from the image of Alex lying besides me and it’s summer all of a sudden all over again, that we were lying and the sun was glistering, all the stars in the sky colouring them in clouds of sunflowers. I was there and he was there, just because I had confessed through rapid feelings. I had managed to get myself in a loop. It’s been so long that I didn’t know if I had felt the unrequited love or somehow something mutual. I didn’t know if his lips tasted disaster. I didn’t know how sour they tasted because I had always enjoyed sour things.Life gives another taste as it comes, changing colours like a kaleidoscope, making sure you’ll never find yourself in it or the past. And somehow even with love you can still feel love, love somehow becomes not enough at the twists and ends of the night, as I sat with the window entirely open, feeling intoxicated by the night with no stars in sight as if everything was sucked out and insomnia was tonight’s soup of the day. It’s not like anything holds sense, because he had replied nothing and we had just shrugged everything under the rug, allowing as if entirely nothing for discussion even if I knew what we had done and what Alex had not said. I ended up not calling Jamie that night or having him over, just loitering around, doing nothing and somehow his presence seemed to remind me that something was wrong with myself.But was it really wrong to confess of something I wasn’t even sure of at the time being? I just stuck my head outside even further, allowing myself to feel what cold really felt like. And I had no idea where life would be going, because when you freelance every single day becomes like a long rubber routine, going through the same thing and until that said party which I had been invited to, it was only me and Jamie and Brian hanging out. When Jamie and Brian would really get along I was entirely left alone to wallow in my feelings and realize how alone I had been. I had no ideas on how to meet new people besides a few which I had gathered here and there. Arielle was a friend of an acquaintance who I had met at some small gathering, suggesting that I should go and that had been it. That’s how far it had been to actually end up blistering myself in an English speaking crowd for once. That was pretty much all of the love story and just like I would have Jamie sit and tell me that sometimes he didn’t know how to survive the day, I just hoped that I wouldn’t get to that ending somehow.When there’s no ideas how can a day even be bright?I felt as if I was in an incubator, as if I couldn’t see anything even if the window was right in front of me and all I could feel was anxiety which was gripping. And it was far too late to even call Alex and I had no idea what we were even, where we were standing, what was IWhat was I to himWas I a shag gone wrong because it ended up scrambling forwards, allowing itself to blossom? Was that all I actually fucking was? What if I was now his breakfast? And I didn’t hold and lit a cigarette, allowing my body to lazily flop halfway out of the window, as if gripping on thin air to allow myself to feel the edge of falling into nothing which would be death, maybe I should’ve traded myself out not to have boredom, but then I should just go to church for such thoughts. And maybe then my night should be made.I went to bed closing the night with all its curtains and thankful for a small but good apartment, my head going through the files of apartments both me and Jamie had shared starting from drug dealers, sharing houses with landlords and all the disasters that all had happened and somehow we all with enough faith end up in something which isn’t so bad, but until then the nightmares are just like non-cracked nuts: entirely useless.The next morning I nearly slept through the whole day, seeing absolutely no meaning in holding it before heading outside and wandering through the main streets after a longer train ride with people who were filling up every spot like sardines and then I was glared at by some small girl for some reason, reminding me of school once the girls I had dated found out that I was actually into men, and just like my parents they had grown an extra head that day which had hated me. It’s hard to write in positive colours or even think of such things when the mood is grim. Only once I hit outside and the church struck six was it then that I wrote to Alex, chewing on some newly bought pick and mix, watermelon flavoured, that I was wondering how was he, and when would the next party be. That only allowed my mind to wander if I would ever have the guts to find a dark corner and please myself with Alex.I wondered if I would ever have the guts to do anything among those lines and how would I even feel to have Arielle find out. I could still see Jamie complaining on the subject, but he would still grit his teeth through such things rather than speak them out loud, trying not to harm me as if we already had a very small thin line which we were balancing on and somehow even if we were standing on air, we had never fallen.What if I had confessed my feelings to the wrong man? I wondered if Jamie would be walking around at this time, since he was always quite a keen walker and I wondered if I even had wanted to see him or if I had wanted to strike very lucky with Alex again. But then once you open a tap, the water comes out, so maybe I would strike lucky with Alex who knew? And what if he was the one? That was surely a story I would only tell once I grew up. I ended up wondering all the way into the old town, dodging all the tourists with their palette of languages as they all wondered, proud enough not to ask where they would be heading. Maybe it was time indeed to text Jamie as well. But I still managed not to do it.Days are idle, days are boring and deadlines end up being hung around the ceiling like bats. I ended up waiting the whole day for Alex to reply and nothing had happened up to the point that I had decided to resend my text with no reply whatsoever and all what my mind could comfort me with was the fact that perhaps he would miraculously show up in my door, take off his jacket and I would jump on him, trailing my fingers down and down his body, feeling him ready. But neither did that happen, instead I ignored two of Jamie’s texts and it wasn’t at all like that was the first time that I had ignored him either or that he had ignored me. And it wasn’t like this was the first idle day of my life and it just felt like everything was crumbling.But just like any morning, you wake up and somehow you’re okay. I woke up to the loud sound of pounding on the door, only it wasn’t morning any longer and it was well past into the day and I had all my deadlines met last night, so it just left with my day feeling like something to kill rather than anything else. I could barely even open my eyes, wishing that whoever it was would just find another way to knock elsewhere, regardless if they wanted me specifically or not. It seemed too early for Jamie, so the only person I could imagine was Alex and only that was the pure reason behind me waking up. Because Jamie would’ve eventually taken out his pair of keys and gotten himself something to drink, while waiting for me and then watched some trash telly, while I’d catch the last tears of avoiding the day.It wasn’t even that I didn’t want to see Alex, it was that my body wasn’t producing the right sentences in my head, allowing me to chew on them properly since I had confessed and not gotten an answer. What if I didn’t get an answer not just because I didn’t deserve one, but specifically because it wasn’t meant to be.Alex was properly dressed in his leather jacket, zipped up all the way reminding both of us of the weather, but it seemed like both of us were clutching to the ends of it and forcing softer coats upon our shoulders. Watching him through sleepy eyelids and pure fear was surely one of my least favourite experiences and I wondered how come we’ve gone so far from being a regular hookup to a more distinct and colourful one. I didn’t even know how I had barely managed to even keep conversations with people and now I had Alex in my door far more often in my mind than I would be hunting him down. And he was brighter than a kaleidoscope would’ve been. I knew that it was him, so I didn’t even bother to slip into jeans, allowing him in and I wondered if I had been some metaphor for vulnerability.“Hey.” He had told me before I could even stomach anything, but instead my mind cluttered entirely, the songs spinning in my head forming nothing and becoming annoying noise. I felt like a kindergardener not knowing what could a meetup even mean, and of course he wasn’t talking. Instead he just headed inside and I felt as if the only thing I could do was simply manage some tea for him, but instead I just stood there rooted to the ground. I felt lost.“Look-” I start but instead he kisses he hastily, before realizing what a chance he’s missing and places my lips upon his again and again, again and again, before opening my mouth and I open mine without properly realizing it, as if silencing me to tell that it’s all a big sex game and somehow the experimenting Alex keeps crawling further, as if addicted and I wonder if it’s even me he’s addicted to. I just pull him closer to me, feeling his hands go under my plain old t-shirt, pushing it up to reveal me. I feel myself breathing heavier and both of our eyes meet and I can see in his deep brown eyes that he doesn’t want to discuss it but they don’t tell me a thing if he’s thought about it properly and what has crossed his mind. I can’t help but wonder if he had a sleepless night and how come he hadn’t texted me and how far was he even pushing it. Where were we going, baby?And I didn’t know where would I even stop with the questions-As he just kissed my jaw,What did my words mean to you?As he kissed my neck,Do you love me too?And it all seemed like ecstasy, travelling down and forth my body, rocking me as I was already heavily breathing as he was soon enough on his knees, pulling my underwear down, exposing me right to him, as I was hard already. I bite my lip, cursing at myself silently, which Alex takes as pure sexual frustration rather than anything else, stroking my legs as he slowly licks the tip, closing his eyes, taking me in his mouth and that’s when I can only think of the questions and I feel myself so anxious that it turns me on even more. I try to think of something else as he sucks on me harshly, digging his nails into my skin, not allowing me a second breath. If I come and then start talking it would be more than unfair, but then he just takes even more in his mouth and I look down on him gagging. I push his head closer to me, pulling him by his hair as I hold his head still, thrusting deeper as I can feel him barely take me. I don’t hold and dissolve entirely, coming fast in his mouth, moaning out loud in the corridor.Instantly after I do so, a wave of sadness washes over me as he coughs lightly, rubbing his neck, looking up at me, sheepishly now slumped on the floor with his jeans more than visibly tenting. I just go on top of him, kissing him hastily, feeling my taste in his mouth, a bit gross, but it doesn’t turn either of us off. I keep my eyes closed as I myself travel lower to suck him off. I think it’s a first where I feel more mechanical, knowing that if I were to have sex it’s better to have it now. I don’t even know if after I ask we will have more discussions? I know that it may be it for all I ever cared. The problem once you start speaking is that everything you might say can hurt a person in a way or another, it’s not even for some reason, it’s just because it happens. And that’s when a person falls out and you might never know if the person loved you back. It would make sense in a novel, as you read, thinking that surely the plot wasn’t closed, that the person will come back, but in real life, they never do and you can only be left guessing if they had ever loved you at all. And that is how it simply ends, with no knowledge and guessing and wondering how come one small phrase ended it all. Even just thinking it doesn’t make much sense.So I go down on Alex, booming him nearly instantly knowing that all the frilly foreplay is much beyond him after blowing me. I get turned on again, but I don’t care, going on him slower and slower until he moans for me to go faster, but my head is still and already filled up with the fact that I need to find the energy and guts to even ask him what do I mean to the other young man. What was I to him and how come I didn’t even get a small reply on what was I doing when I had stated it. Why hadn’t he asked me anything at all? How come his lips were entirely tapped shut?And he comes in my mouth, I cringe but swallow. Holding him down, as he moans even louder than I had, clutching onto my head, moans becoming softer as the orgasm eases and lets him go. He lays there, eyes closed, jacket still buttoned as if it’s cold in the apartment, pants just barely unzipped and slightly pulled down, looking entirely spent. Alex lays there for a while as I just go up and he throws his arms around me, pulling me closer to him, clutching as he regains his breath. We lay there for a while on the corridor rug, shoes a bit away from us. Then he pats me on the back.“I’ve got to get going. I promised Arielle I wouldn’t be long.” He coughs lightly and I wonder if he had caught a cold. “She’s been very clingy these days, I can’t go anywhere at all, she thinks a couple should be doing absolutely everything together.”“Well, she’s right-” I say, barely summoning to find the words, but then I realize that I should man up somehow, as if I was staring at my reflection and telling myself that the crying teen in eyeliner wasn’t me and never was. I felt as if no matter how much I tried to dress up and look, I would still look sloppy and somehow that I wouldn’t be able to finally manage to find the confidence the clothes would.“Alex, we really need to talk” is what I say straight up, still clutching onto him on the said rug. He just looks at me confused. I wonder where does his confusion even come from as I can barely feel my arm from underneath him as we had decided to curl up like lovebirds. And now is his falling confusion which surprises me. He just untangles himself from my embrace, pushing himself a bit away from me, as if realizing what the topic of the discussion even is. It crosses my mind that Jamie would just judge me for all the sudden actions and wouldn’t have done this, possibly judging because he rarely falls in love. And I can see him smoking a cigarette as he rants and I wish I were with him instead because this with Alex is simply terrifying now.“You never replied.” I just say simply and I know that it’s what the question he’s running away from sounds like and I know that’s what’s causing his sleepless nights if he had ever been graced by any in the past few days. And he looks at me like a deer in the headlights.“Because there’s nothing to reply, Miles.” And I just sit up, look at him, as if struck and my mind goes entirely blank. It’s not like I hadn’t known that this is a mere hook-up which had gone more than wrong in all the ways, because it had. It had ended up cracking much earlier, allowing me to paint through all the cracks and believe that he had somehow found some love with me, when he was plainly just cheating on his girlfriend.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Growing up I even believed in failed relationships, that I could have one and by just having one, that would somehow be enough. That the memories would keep me full somehow, that somehow I would manage to make more sane of myself, once tasted someone’s lips and that’s why I had never touched Jamie, because I knew that I would screw up everything and that would’ve surely not been enough. That made me believe that it was what love was. With Alex it was different, I felt like a grenade, knowing what I was about to do, but trying everything, maybe I was going back to my old high school belief that a failed relationship would still be better than nothing. I try not to say anything at all, as I watch him, regretting that my feelings had escalated ridiculously in an odd confession, as if I were proposing to someone without knowing them, an arranged marriage. I didn’t know why had those words escaped my lips and why had I been the one trailing after Alex so much. I just stare at Alex and it’s not that he’s cold-He is cold.Somehow I am reminded of a conversation I had with Jamie, where we had both sat on rails, watching people go by and it was back when Jamie’s hair had been much longer and I remember how he had been sad due to his first breakup with Brian and after that he had never grown his hair again. So, we both sat on said rail and he had told me that he thinks that what if some people just don’t have soulmates. I replied that I always found it easier if people do, but sometimes they never end up with them due to some reason. Then he looked at me, his green eyes far too much immersed in despair and told me that it was the saddest thing he had heard and just proceeded to smoke. I just watched him, not knowing what to do with his statement and somehow that memory flung back at me, just now. Maybe we just don’t need some people in our lives. I knew that I wanted Alex beneath me and his dark eyes seemed to be far too luring, I knew that I wanted to pull his hair until he’d feel it-I want to kiss him, I want him to feel salty love on my lips, but instead I can see that he’s itching for a cigarette, but instead I wait for him, as he just stands up and motions that he needs a smoke. I follow him outside, both of us saying nothing and as he smokes he doesn’t take his eyes off me, before opening his mouth in a devilish grin and I wonder what kind of pact he has in mind.“Of course if you mind being friends with benefits.” I didn’t even know we were considered friends, so that feels a bit flattering on one end, as I just stare at him. Is it better than nothing? Do I even have a say?He seems to have wiped off my words of love. I have sold my soul with no return already. I just shrug and take a drag of his cigarette, as he feeds me it and I know that he has hunger for me even if it’s sole sexual, it feels like some sort of need, which only strokes my ego and punishes my desires. It feels being exposed again and somehow feels like winning nothing again. I don’t even know where to go from here. I don’t feel comfortable being his friend, making it everything besides romantic and that just feels odd. It feels like a different Jamie, then. Alex doesn’t take my silence too well and keeps dragging on his cigarette.“I’m with Arielle.”“You’re cheating on her.” I just reply to him as soon as he opens his mouth and Alex just shrugs, not really knowing what to reply to that, looking down. It’s odd to consider at this time of the day that he even has feelings for her, which are deeper yet he’s sleeping around with someone else. “You yourself said that you guys have issues. I don’t understand what’s keeping you.” “Have you thought that I’d have to move out, that I’d have to turn life around just because I ended up with a different sexual desire? I’d have to change absolutely everything.” But he snaps as soon as I can even continue my thinking. I just stare at him blankly. I even narrow my eyes at his stupidity. “Well, of course, you’d have to change everything, because you’ve already changed everything.” I snap back and I wonder if this counts as being friends, since I can now voice my opinion. I decide to add that ice to the bunch we’re drinking. “I’m your friend, I’m supposed to be honest with you, Alex.”Alex throws out his cigarette, nearly smoked, so he just goes inside the building and up the stairs, looking behind to make sure that I’m following him. I am. I feel like I need a drink from listening to all of this disaster which I’m signing up for and I can only dread that this is what happens from thinking with your penis, that straight guys are hot, this is all fucked in the head by the end of the day, solely because he doesn’t want to leave his girlfriend and wants to remain heterosexual, or at least in his mind. We get back in the apartment and it feels small and it’s a bit mirrored off Jamie’s since all apartments are similar, it’s only Alex’s house which is different but even then the fact that he has a house doesn’t change the fact that they’re also the same to other houses. We live in a world where someone is clearly jerking off to repetition. “And where else does your honesty lay?” He asks me, now feeling fidgety in my apartment and he decides to just sit on the floor, somehow couches are unpopular these days, but after a while, he moves a Beatles pillow and sits on the couch. Jamie would usually mock me for those pillows, but eventually he said that they were cute and left them be. There was a time when Jamie was into astrology, back when we had both just realized who we were and things would match up in the charts, but be a life disaster and eventually Jamie said that the horoscope is for those who work out and clearly he wasn’t that. I stopped checking mine’s and Jamie’s as well, knowing the end result anyway. Same would be for Alex’s. In the end all the horoscopes lie, because we don’t end up with those said people. It just becomes a sour placebo for heartbreak.Alex eventually picked up the pillow and twirled it in his hands, looking at Paul. Probably still thinking what to say and I’d never know what has graced his mind in that specific moment, when me and Jamie were the closest it bothered me that I would never know what’s truly on his mind and now that was reflected to Alex. “You really need to stop playing saint.” Alex coughed, covering his mouth and it was most likely from the sudden cold outside which now had enough snow falling and making sure that you wouldn’t guess the current season, just allow it to be covered with a thin plasticine layer of snow which would be gone before the kids would dig up their sleighs again. I just looked at him, a bit confused even if I had known what he meant by that. Alex picked up where he left off. “You’re agreeing to sleep with a man who is cheating.”“Yeah, because you’re not breaking up with her.” I snap, but that doesn’t bother to change Alex’s opinion of me. “You’re still the lover. Think of it any other way, you’re a lover, the lover is just as guilty. You’d blame any woman for doing it, so how come you’re different for doing so?” He finished his sentence and coughed again, before calming down his throat and hugging himself for warmth. At this rate I wouldn’t be surprised if it so happened that it would snow in May again. “Just because you’re a guy who’s literally jerking off to some straight guy who decided to wander in gay territories-”“How about that you’re the cheater?” I interrupt him completely and he just smirks at me, nodding, mumbling something under his breath before I ask him to speak up. “Hey, just because we’re talking about your lover role, doesn’t mean that I forget about my own sins.” Alex seems to be completely fidgety, allowing his hands to wander all over the pillow and clutch it tightly throughout the whole conversation. Then he just looks at me, going through the words over in his head and I actually notice how he speaks in brief pauses, really going through his own words and the small observation stuns me for a while, before he picks up the conversation. “I mean, if we’re friends, which I want us to be, I want to be honest with you.”He pauses again. “We’ve never even talked properly, we have sex and then we have some post-coital chatter, but that’s all it lands on, that’s the only case where we do talk.” He seems to repeat himself as Alex stares ahead. “I mean, you want to date me, but we’ve never done anything like it.”“Because you don’t want it-” I try to dig into the conversation.“Because neither do you keep your hands off me.” Alex interrupts me, smirking and I observe him with his shy nature wrapped into a cocky shell, where he doesn’t really know what he’s doing, like the rest of us. “That’s true, but it doesn’t change that you do it either.” I decide to play his game as well. “Yeah, we’re both guilty, but that doesn’t change the fact that-”I lose my trail of thought, just looking at him and sighing, shaking my head to indicate that I’m done. I look at him, lost and I just shrug my shoulders. “Sure, let’s be friends.”“With benefits. I’m still shagging you.” Alex grins, leaning against the pillow, smashing Paul’s face with his elbow. “It really doesn’t bother you that you’re cheating on Arielle, I see.” I try to be snarky, but it backfires as Alex just continues to talk. “As much as it bothers you when my dick is up your ass.” Alex smirks. Sometimes I don’t know where to go and as soon as he leaves, which is not too far after our small conversation, he just excused himself, suggesting that we should really go out more from the four walls of the apartment and watch a movie or eat out, check out a museum or anything at all. His homework to me was to actually investigate where I would want to go. He called me a while after and just asked me what would my plans for Valentine’s be and to be honest every single Valentine’s seemed to be in a strong haze of that time when Jamie was insensitive about a gift I had gotten him and I ended up getting so drunk that I just laid on the floor, unable to sit up because then my head would be pounding and ever since Valentine’s seemed to have a rather dark red tint for me. But I didn’t want to tell him about loving some other man at some point of my existence and listening to I Love You Golden Blue by Sonic Youth, just because Jamie and Brian liked them a lot. Brian specifically had been a huge fan and just listening to something which made me think of Jamie, was something I was wounding myself with deliberately. I had no one to pick me up either as I just laid there until the booze had worn off and I woke up in the morning with no hangover. Seeing Jamie kick and trip the shoes as he makes his way into my apartment feels like a daydream because we haven’t seen each other in that much, as I would wait for everything to unravel and not understand even what actually day it is anymore. He’s also clutching onto his leather jacket, as if the weather means nothing outside, but he’s got a warm stripy sweater underneath as he finally makes his way in with his key. I just invite him over to my bed, as he goes inside the covers fully clothed and it’s so usual that I don’t get too excited from the motion and Jamie looks up at the ceiling, smirking that I had always wanted to put glow in the dark stars but due to short renting contracts I wouldn’t have the time to put them up. I watch him for a while, as he keeps looking up, as if they would be there and eventually stare at the ceiling again. Maybe love has finally let go of me, allowing only the aftertaste to remain and I just have to rinse my mouth now. “How’s your loverboy?” And I know that he’s angry that I’ve been sleeping with a taken man, even if he would agree that Alex seems to be a catch. I turn to face him and he does the same. I see the same in his dark eyes and I smile at my best friend. I just sigh, taking the pillow from underneath me and putting it on top of my face and I say only for it to come out muffled, that he wants to be friends with benefits to which Jamie removes the pillow and asks me to repeat it once more. “I said that he wants to be friends with benefits.” I say. “I thought he’d want to be lovers. Isn’t that what you are-” And he stops midway, thinking. “Is that an upgrade or a downgrade from being a sleazy lover?”He smirks and I hit him with the pillow. Jamie just smirks again, trying to block it, but failing as he realized it far too late. “I actually don’t know.” I pause. “Now that you put it that way... Is it an upgrade?”Jamie now openly laughs at my glistering with hope eyes and just remains still, watching me unravel with thoughts. He notices that I hold the pause, waiting for him to reply, so he instead just takes his time, taking the said pillow for himself as he puts it behind his head. “I don’t know, Miles. Is it? I mean, you’re still a sleazy lover, now that he just decided that he wants to remain friends with you.” Jamie clicks his tongue. “And on top of everything, wouldn’t you say that it’s because he doesn’t want anything to do with dating you, then?”And that’s when it hits me just as badly as it hit me the first time, only now I have no pillow to hide under and no Alex to complain to but to someone else, who had never wanted me as a lover as well. It becomes a subject I can’t discuss with Jamie, since he’s the other person I had desired. For some reason people just don’t want to ruin things with me and that just makes me far less desired and sad. Jamie notices my sudden change, but doesn’t say anything, as if waiting for my mouth to catch up on my sadness, that it would speak for me, but the words wouldn’t come for me. Jamie just put his hand on my shoulder, before pulling me into a hug and I felt that I was double-friendzoned by two lads now. Instead I pushed myself out of the hug, realizing that some breakfast would actually do me good. Jamie browsed on his phone the whole time as I was choosing which suit to wear, something he had taught me to keep myself sane. He noticed my sudden choice of attire, but didn’t comment much.We had breakfast together, I cooked some eggs for him as well, knowing that his breakfast was surely something lazy like grilled cheese, so he didn’t refuse the double breakfast which was handed to him today. “Come on, Miles, speak up, don’t bottle it up.” He said, blowing on the fork. “You always tell me to never bottle it up with Brian, so why should you with someone who you’ve even known less?”Jamie realized his mistake and corrects himself. “Not that it makes it any less painful, just saying, that... You should really talk about it.” As he says I just realize that I really don’t want to talk about it at all and frankly if I could, I’d excuse him outside, but instead I’m left with him, so I just blow on my own fork. I just shake my head at him, smiling. He shrugs and pokes me with the fork, once he eats the omelette off it. “I don’t know, man, what is there to talk about it, anyway?” I sigh, rubbing the place where he had just poked me. “Of course I’m not happy and of course, I thought that he would just leave her be and end up with me, because he found some gay holy grail. That guy... he’s really not straight. I mean, he’s screwing with me-”“Some people just fall despite their sexualities. You never know.” Jamie shrugs, not so sure of it himself. “Maybe I’ll end up with some chick, how do you know?”We both smirk at his remark. “Yeah, Arielle wanted to hook you up with a friend of hers.” I decide to catch up on it before he asks me further. “I met her. No big deal. She thinks that I’m the great gay friend which she can have.”I swallow a lump in my throat. “She thinks we’re a couple, guess we play too well.” I smirk at him, a bit sadly, but instead Jamie is now glued to his mobile and shows me some text from Brian, which neither of us read and soon enough delete, knowing that now he’s really not coming back.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
I couldn't get the idea that he just saw me as a friend away from my mind. It's as if there was something else I wanted to unfold even if I knew that to Alex I was just a plain shag. So I had decided to kill some time and I was horny one night, making everything even more regretful which caused Jamie to sneak back into my bed, right after I had changed the sheets after the bad hookup. We even both smoked inside, Jamie more for company and laughing at the guy who had cum in under ten minutes, making it officially my worst Grindr shag and it wasn't even the shag which bothered me, but rather the fact that I had done it behind Alex's back and that somehow had made my brain to tick in odd ways, which only made Jamie hold me close and I knew that I had just loved him so long ago and now I was left dwelling on what to do with Alex. “Miles, why don't you just close the whole damn story off, by telling him that you love him?” I glared at him. He only put his cigarette to his mouth, breathing the smoke out by looking upwards. “Okay, why don't you tell him that you like him, despite all his sick behaviour? I mean, you clearly want to try it out with him. What's stopping you?”“Arielle?” I nearly laugh at his face and his reaction, but Jamie just shrugs. “You clearly like him.” I see that he's going in circles to try and drill it into my head, but I try to push away the clearly bad hookup and the feelings of guilt with a boyfriend I don't even have. I try to avoid Jamie's dark green eyes, to make sure that I don't catch even more guilt of a different subject. My mind goes blank, just my body shivering and I don't feel Jamie stroking my back and reaching for another cigarette, as he lights another one for me as well. I still don't know how long will the taste last of trying someone else. All I see is how the day drastically took its turn and it's going darker now, reminding of a shallow winter end.It takes me a while to call Alex and even then I don't really know what to say, before I call it feels like I'm holding an old receiver on the end and listening to the phone silence from both sides. I don't know how long this melancholy lasts as Jamie just ignores the text Brian had sent him without reading it, he deleted it and moved on. I wondered if I could be as single that way if Alex would've left me for good. And I know that I am attaching when nothing is really going on and we had barely talked and everything is physical.I don't even move from my couch, just sitting there with the laptop besides me, reading useless information just to tone the brain down. I can't comprehend the days which are passing. You're supposed to call your friends whenever you are feeling down or confused.Alex is supposedly my friend.But it feels far too confusing, I feel like I am terribly displeased where things are going, where it's only him who calls and we just pick it up wherever we had left it off sex-wise and that's it, I feel like I am an experimenting rat, even if Jamie is right and if he doesn't say it, I know that behind his eyes he thinks that I shouldn't have involved myself with this at all. It's like going back to a bad shag, it shouldn't be happening. I end up crying slightly, not much because I'm unused to it but because I've locked myself up for days and in between work I feel like I'm not glued together anymore, I can feel myself coming apart. I can no longer find things which entertain me and movies just irritate me along with books, which Jamie sometimes brings to tell me to try and read along with movie suggestions. If we do sit together and watch something I'm on my phone or I end up just looking away, not feeling anything. Even when he hugs me goodbye I don't feel any lost love anymore which I wished was mutual. I'm going bonkers.I decide to even try being the silence on the receiver I am scared of and I call him. It takes a while for him to pick up, as I check the time and with this never ending darkness it's close to midnight, but I'm sure he's awake. We never talk.If he wants to be friends, fine. Eventually I hear a rather careless hello and I hope I'm not distracting him from anything and I swear that I don't want it to be something like having sex with Arielle, but his breathing is even and he waits for me to say something, until I greet him back but at the same time, he just picks up.“What's up, Miles?” I wish we were back to the said receiver time, where he wouldn't know that it were me and I could just listen to his breathing and then go to sleep, using it as a lullaby. But instead he knows that I'm calling and eventually I hear him drink from something and some movie in the back, soon enough I hear Arielle's laughter. I'm guessing it's a comedy. I could call him over, after all Arielle does that all the time from what I've gathered from the man himself. I wondered how would it be to date someone so extroverted and obsessed with friends, but then whoever would have had to deal with Jamie being over all the time or back when Jamie was with Brian, it would have been an endless double date with all four of us together. I guess we all don't differ that much from others. “I'm not feeling too well.” I confess rather gingerly, but possessively, really hoping to drag him over. I could see Alex looking back at Arielle, who would be immersed into her heterosexual movie. I wondered how is it like to even have a girlfriend, since I never really troubled much and how would it be like to have one today, but that sounds so bizarre that I could easier imagine Martians than me with a girlfriend. “Oh... well.” Then Alex ponders and looks back at Arielle I presume, who now noticed that something is going on. I imagine everything rather vividly for me to stay sane. “You need anything? Anything I can help with?” I smile as he asks and I rub my eye, which is still weird from the brief crying episode I had.“Yeah, if you could come over that would be great. If that's... not too late for you.” I'm really playing all my cards and I hope that he doesn't really feel it. I hear him press me against some fabric, so it could be either his shirt or the material of the couch, as I imagine him asking Arielle, as all I hear is something muffled and I imagine her waving that it's alright. But it's not that easy, it actually takes a while where I become worried, that what if it is far too late and his girlfriend wouldn't let him out after all and I'm left to be alone and dragging Jamie over for the billionth time and hearing him complain that I should at least go out and buy some cigarettes, even if I had stocked up for the week. I wait a bit more and I feel like dropping the call, just because my anxiety reaches its peak.But eventually he picks up the phone again and I hear his breathing once more. “Yeah, I'll be right over.” And I hear some cheer in his voice, where I can't help but ask, why are you with your girlfriend then, if you're so cheerful to come to your lover?I mean, friend with benefits. As I wait for him, I ponder and wonder how come we haven't talked that much of ourselves, how come we only ever talk about sex and that's it, if he wants to be friends so badly and I don't even know how to make both of us talk, because I'd be too nervous to talk first and he doesn't even want to do those steps. “Great, thanks, I'll see you then.” I reply, feeling odd that I am literally the one igniting the fire which is supposed to take over the city in a ring, but somehow Arielle is still oblivious. Is it because we are both men? Would it be different if I were a woman, then? Is it because society is so oblivious to men having relationships among themselves that even cheating is something which just slips someone's mind. I end up crying again, pondering if I need to go on some medication like Jamie goes on sometimes, but it could be simply because I happen to be too tired or maybe people cry rather often and I am just not notified of it, so when I cry once a year it's just a big deal. I know Jamie cries far more often, but I just end up under the list of people who rarely cry. I end up smoking two cigarettes in a row, going outside just to breathe the air instead of smoking next to the window and I feel a bit agoraphobic, not used to being outside of my small apartment which could've been some rich person's cupboard if I imagined hard enough. It's a nightmare to find a place to rent, so anything is up for grabs, even some cupboard and Jamie's place is nearly identical to mine, only with a bit more space which now is empty without Brian's discarded clothes and ruined make up here and there. I wonder how even is it to live without an old lover now. But I can't ask Jamie that, not while he is grieving at least. It's odd that love can be compared to death in some way, losing someone is always like death, it's like a small glimpse of how it feels to lose someone completely.I remember once I got asked in class whether a parent's death hurts more or a parent's divorce and the answer was divorce, even if I protested the teacher, because the parent leaves, leaving the child wondering what had they done wrong and so on and so on. But wouldn't death be the same thing? If fate is a bunch of additions of our actions, wouldn't someone's death be the same thing? Why had we ran upon that person's death?I rub my eyes, discarding the cigarette in the nearby trash bin, shivering at the sudden cold wind. Alex should be here soon, since there is no traffic and frankly the buses are rather fast at this hour. Of course unless he missed the one he was supposed to get. But I end up waiting for him outside, sitting next to the building, freezing, but allowing myself to keep sitting here, even if I could catch a cold. I wish I had a pet, but then I would have to take care of it as well and that is fucking hard, because I can't even get myself to go outside these days. Maybe I just want to be loved. I severely hold from getting a third cigarette, when I see a familiar man in a leather jacket, probably freezing as well under all the romantic street lights. He waves at me and we are no lovers to run to each other. “You look like shit.” He raises his voice, as he approaches me and gives me a brief pat on the back, before sitting besides me. “You alright?”I put my head on his shoulder and he doesn't move it away. I don't know what's with me, but I can't really tell him that I started thinking of you and suddenly the world became a gloomy place for me. Because if I were to tell that to someone they would just tell me to cry a river or ask if that were it? But sometimes the problem is dug under what the nails can reach. Maybe I am depressed all of a sudden and there is something wrong with me or I could just be sad and lovestruck, who knows. “No, I haven't been too well recently.” I confess as Alex just turns his head and looks down on me. I glance at his lips. There I go again with the sexual tension and release. Well, he is a good fuck. I don't even know where to start.I want us to be lovers at least, but we've discussed it before and he said that we should be friends with benefits instead. I just sigh and somehow, he gets the hint that I need some silence with him, but all the does is get a cigarette and light it. Is this how friends would work as well? I'm used to being close with Jamie but we've always struggled with weird feelings, so we overstepped the barrier of closeness. But then, I'm fucking Alex so there is no sense of barriers of course. I could be fucking him right now and it would still be seen as friendly terms. We hold our silence, but Alex decides to interrupt it. “If you want to keep quiet, that's okay, but I just... want to make sure that you're okay, that's all.” Alex says and nudges me with his shoulder and pauses. “I forgot what I was going to say, but silence is okay too.”And he pats me on the head. All of a sudden I want affection, but I don't want sex, I don't want mindless fucking I could get out of any grindr hookup, I want to make love at least or even kiss him. So I pull him towards me and he kisses me even before I do, shifting closer to me to a more comfortable position as we both straighten up and make out, I see that he's seeing it as more passion making, so I try to slow down and eventually he gets the hint and does so as well. I can taste stars in his kissing-Eventually we both get cold and laugh as we break the kiss. “I think we should go back to yours, Miles.” He tells me and I just nod, standing up as he puts his arm around me and we just go inside, walking up the stairs and straight up to the apartment. Opening it, feels like freeing a can of worms all over again, because I can taste all the depression which I have been bottling up and not to mention completely stale air. I excuse the fact that some clothes are laying around in corners, just because the laundry bag is full, but Alex pays no attention, taking off his shoes, but sticking to his leather jacket for warmth for the time being. I grab a sweater from the floor and use it for warmth as I pull it on. “Do you want some tea, maybe?” I ask him, as he nods and I know that we both need something warm for our stale hearts. So I get us both to the tiny part of the kitchen and Alex sits next to the small table, fiddling with a cigarette box, not forcing me to talk or anything, which I'd terribly thankful.Do I even have the guts to even say anything at all? But then I recall that I wanted to hear more about him, more than anything else. I bite my tongue, the right question popping in my head, as I turn around with both tea mugs and I'm sure he notices my shady smile, as he just nods at me, confused, pondering what do I have under my sleeve. “Just because I'm depressed... and I feel like listening.” I get the courage to ask the right question as I observe him. He's deadly attractive with his quiff and well put attire compared to my old t-shirt which I rolled in all day today. “When did you first start thinking of guys?”Alex laughs at me. “Is this what you want to talk about, friend?” He asks, reminding me that we're supposed to be friends, but I seem to be cooking up all the right answers in my dumb head. “Well, I need to get to know you better, before anything else happens.” I say and blow on the tea, just to keep myself occupied, as I wait for Alex to put sugar in his tea. Then it's my turn and he still hasn't spoken. I wonder how much of a late bloomer is he actually. “Well...” And he keeps his mouth open to speak. “I was kind of always attracted to girls, it was only later that men came to me. It would just be... like oh, that guy is good looking. Or something like that. Then...”He sighs.“Once Arielle was out and I saw this really good looking guy, this was a few months ago. I really would just see attractive men until then, but never thought much. But this one guy which I saw on the underground got me thinking a lot. And I just wondered how would it feel you know...” He shrugs, looking away. “And that got me fired up. I wanked. It was good. Then I checked on porn.” He taps the mug and rubs his nose, avoiding my gaze. “Didn't you say you never wanked to a bloke?” I ask him, recalling our first conversation. “I'm not stupid. I knew I'd be more attractive if I lied.” Alex huffs. “Just how much gay porn did you watch?” I laugh at him. “Enough, whenever Arielle would be gone.” He confesses, still looking at his mug, not raising his beautiful eyes. He brings the mug to his lips to blow on it. “I didn't think it would go this far. I thought I could go back to having a clean slate, okay?” My heart stops briefly. “I didn't know I'd enjoy gay sex so much.” He whines, putting his head on the table and looking at me. He never changed and I just seem to be praying for some relationship which I don't even want to utter.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
I always found it terrifying how you could simply erase gay people, that in some cultures they are so frowned upon, that some go on in their lives never meeting someone open about it and it's not hard to just consume media which never mentions gay people as well. When I was told that I wouldn't be accepted because my parents stated they knew little to none, I kind of started shying away from media which just depicts a straight cis life, because I understand what crime those shows end up doing. It's drastic, but I've got far too many wounds. And I looked at Alex, wondering if he had grown up in the same way as we all have. But in the end I just pat him on the head, smiling lightly. It was all for show, because we all try to be a better person when it comes to meeting someone else for the first time, we get scared that we're not attractive enough and then once the time comes where you can either tell the truth or lie, we lie, wishing we were that lie. I feel like I'm somewhat younger and more romantic for thinking of a reply among the lines of it's about the person you have sex with, but then you can easily have good sex from a hookup, even if my luck had been rotten recently, but Alex was a hookup. I try to remind myself that. I never understood why the love stories were always built on hookups, I wondered if that somehow would degrade us gay men to being whores, but in the end that just becomes a cliché we have. Just like some go from friends to lovers. Some things in life are predictable so that they seem secure and it's easier not to ponder about it to the point of exhaustion. I wonder if this would be my love story as well. I just stretch my hand to go through his gelled hair, which is in his usual neat quiff and I can imagine him building it right after brushing his teeth and then look at himself, not blinking, to make sure it stands still and proper. Out of politeness, I don't go much through it.Touching him makes me want some more. It's always like that with Alex, the hunger becomes animalistic. He looks back up and stares at me and neither of us say anything. I can only believe that there is something going on between us. “What about you?” Alex asks. “I won't be the only one talking then. Even if you want to hear me talk.”I realize that it's just something Alex is, terribly cautious and some qualities which don't get under my skin just rub me off the wrong way in the beginning, keeping me aware that I haven't fallen into some abyss just yet which I can't get out of. It's all because it's a question which I myself wouldn't want to answer, as so many years have passed that all the things just intertwine and I happen not to know which ones were really the ones happening. I look out of the window, but Alex doesn't change the subject.“I always... kind of knew. I've tried women.” I pause. “Because that's what you're supposed to find sexy.”I tap the table, looking back at the window with the opposite building slowly turning it's last lights off. Not everyone has a free schedule. “Jamie came out as gay much before than I did.” I see that our friendship would always raise a few eyebrows, especially if I say that Jamie had allowed me to live with him after his parents kicked him out. I keep looking at the window, never wanting to see anyone's face who would expect some sexual resolution between my best friend and myself. “That got me thinking. If someone who I was so close to... came out as gay-”“You liked him.” Alex blurts out and takes a sip of his tea and I look back to look into his brown puppy eyes. I just shrug, feeling myself get cold and even start shaking a bit from all the weights of the memories. “That's what my parents thought as well. Before I could even fully comprehend that I liked him. They knew I was gay because I hung out with him, his parents kicked him out for being gay. I guess it was too obvious.” I pause. “He's a great guy. I just couldn't understand what was wrong with him... because it was something in me as well.”I look at him.“There is no grand finale, Alex, we never dated.” Alex just looks at me confused.“Don't, like, you guys fuck your friends?” Is his even more at loss question, as I shake my head. I seem to be handing him more and more confusion. He just looks confused at the present, unaware of what else can come, but I want to close the subject. Then Alex decides to be cheeky. “We're fucking.” I don't want us to be just fucking. But I don't say that aloud. I want to somehow fall in love. I want to utterly be destroyed by it, I want to be obsessed and I want the vulnerability and infinity of protection and laughter that comes with it even if it means laying drunken on the floor heartbroken by the end of it. I want to see how Alex would taste, how would it taste to be fully immersed in him even if I enjoy the sarcasm he shares, I want him fully laying in front of me, I want to forget all the love I've felt and dabbled in before, I want to completely be dissected myself and know that no ghost would look back in the winter's window. “That's because you want it to be so.” I say swiftly, showing how much I belong to him, because when you're tired you let the beloved take the steering wheel. “Miles, this is a two player game. You're cheating just as much as I am.” He taps the cup and somehow, all the desire to listen to him talk goes stale and I look outside, all lights gone and the upcoming winter sounds far more hollow than it should be. I wonder if he had wanted to tell me this all along, but I shall always be one to blame as well. “I completely know.” I admit. I'm not sure that had registered within my mind entirely though. Because I still shift the blame onto Alex, even if I had waltzed into this with barely to much regret. I don't even know how to convey how lonely I feel. I don't know even how to speak properly on the despair I feel even riding the subway, not even getting pleasure from people spotting because all the mind drifts off to is the fact that someone is dating that one or maybe someone in the restaurant called in for a neutral territory but the drink will still be spilled at least on the floor after reaching the face of the former lover. I would tell myself that I'd prefer it if I had someone else even for a brief while, that's why I had gone to the said party in the first place. I didn't know that the someone whom I'd be dancing with would be with the lights off so that his girlfriend wouldn't see it. “I still want you to talk.” I confess, looking directly at him as he just seemed a bit uncomfortable for the sudden brush of breach of the NSA. I'm tired of rethinking loves that will never happen again. “Well, what do you want to talk about?” Alex asks me, stretching out his hands on the table so that they nearly reach my sides, it's a small table in a small place after all. Nothing too fancy, unlike Alex's house which I still wonder how he had managed to score with the current market ranking, but it could be Arielle's and there's just some backstory I am not aware of. I just stare at my lover, not even knowing how to open up about one's struggles or how to make them speak of their own. “I don't know.” I confess, confused to the bone where I am even going with this, but I feel as if I'm drinking and I'm about to open a pandora box, but maybe it's best to ask difficult questions at first since we are doing this. “I don't know. Are you engaged?”Alex quickly shakes his head. I don't even know how this is supposed to be a sigh of relief, but I do it anyway. “I do have a friend though, older than both of us and he's been engaged four times. Now he's married, but it took him four engagements...” Alex pauses. “Is that the sort of gibberish you wanted?”Not to feel lonely, I want to add, but I just rest my head against my arms on the table. I motion for him to keep talking, because I'd rather have him on the steering wheel of talking. Have I fallen so low to ask a hookup which is cheating on his girlfriend to give me company? Have I sunk so low? I look into his dark eyes, which only reflect interest and a bit of confusion on where am I going with this. How lonely am I to tell myself this is okay and even drag Jamie's judgement along with mine? How long will it take for me to tip over and end up in an even bigger mess? How much does he have to talk until then? And if everything does end how long will it take for me to forget? It all just started and unravelled, where is some guarantee that I will remain the constant hook up? I don't know.It's like he's engraved in my mind and I understand that it's better to think of him than some suicidal thoughts and he had yanked me out of some turmoil, where I'm just stuck pondering where else does my life go. Where does it lead and how come is everything so bleak? It wasn't a good place where I pondered too much about religion and how come I start working from bed and eat in bed. It's not something I would like to reveal either. It's probably not the best to reveal to your hookup that somehow, they had saved you.Supposedly we get love when we don't look, but from what I see is when we need it the most. That made me think of fate and religion a lot. But I was too depressed to even think of it clearly, that there was some silver lining, all I could care about was the fact that I would somehow manage to the next day. Jamie had Brian at the time. I had no one, I even wished for something with turmoil, because I felt that it would wake me up from my depressive slumber. And yet the more I get from Alex the hungrier I get for him. “Anything.” I sigh, looking at him, wishing for him to speak and I ponder if I really force it too much upon him, but the question remains, why do I want him to speak so badly? Why do I force it? Why do I get such a trembling fear of losing him? I look at the table with our hands far too close, but I'm not his girlfriend to touch hands and the intimacy, the dynamics are awfully different. I'm just a hookup with issues that I want to be loved somehow. “How come you never made a move on Jamie?” Alex asks me and I can only wish he's just probing the water with some jealousy, but I'm more than convinced that it's his straight curiosity on what the hell happened between us. “I mean, there was always Brian-” I start.“No, it's not about the boyfriend. What stopped you exactly? Like... that's an excuse you would give yourself, but there was surely something deep down holding you back.” Alex says and moves his hand, possibly wanting to point at me but decided otherwise last minute. Instead our hands get even closer and I want to stroke his hand, but that would really shatter the 'no-strings-attached' thing we are sort of aiming for. I tilt my head in confusion at first, but the thing is... it's not really something I even thought about before, not something I had thought I would have to dig deep. “I guess... rejection?” I say, a bit confused, but Alex seems to ponder on my answer, just looking at me, scanning me, as if to see if I'm actually spilling the truth. “I obviously never thought about it. I just always assumed that why would Jamie even look twice at me.”“He took you in. You guys lived together for a fair while.” Alex shrugs. “It's not something I believe in a lot. Friendship, that is. Long lasting one. Like you always shuffle friends unless they're co-workers because then they can't really go anywhere so you're forced to be friends with.” He clearly doesn't think of me twice, why do I bother thinking and struggling so much to keep some sort of relation with him? How much does it even take to make one fall in love with you? And why do I label something as love anyway? It's all because Jamie had asked me so. I know that he doesn't feel the same way and it should be a tape that I should play on repeat in my head until my head explodes and only then I'll stop thinking about it. How long has it been that I've actually started falling for someone who seemed to at least agree to my partner in a dance and had gotten through with it? I knew that even opening my gob about it, to come clean would be possibly be the world's worst idea. I knew that crying to Jamie that I wanted something messy and exciting was a bad idea. It was all my fault, because I was stupid enough not to realize how much does something one sided ache. It's not like I've never been on that side, because I have, but it's stupid of me to wish something like this and now I'm stuck, asking that somehow he would feel the same way. It feels like trailing nails on a board. I'm the one screwing my life up. It's my own nails. I can't possibly tell him that one more thing and I'll be tipped over and drowning. Drowning isn't good, I was drowning with my love for Jamie. I was never saved in the end I had to swim from underwater myself. I know what I'm getting into. “I guess.” I say, I am much asocial as they can be with frankly Jamie and a couple of other friends. But by the end of the day I always feel lonely and like a loser. I realize that I should say more to keep the conversation going and Alex looks at me, nodding at me to fucking continue. “I'm not one to have many friends. I kind of get entangled in more relationships and everything. Look at me and Jamie, that's the sort of thing I end up with. I end up developing feelings far too much.”I know I'm talking to much but if I could I would stroke his goddamn face. I would become productive if I could, but instead I just call Jamie and talk of Alex. I overanalyze everything and I barely manage work. I don't even know where to go from here. “Alright.” Alex says. “But I think there's that point where you decide whether you become friends or lovers.” I ponder out loud, knowing that I've said it to Jamie before. I feel like I'm just frantically repeating myself. “Like... with you and Arielle, I guess. You decided to go ahead and have a relationship.”I don't dare to say us. I don't even want to know what we are and I know that I'm always flirting with him in this odd way I do, which is talking a lot and praying that he would get it. I'm surprised we never met over Grindr, because this could be a success story somehow. “Because you could have remained friends.” I say, nearly shrugging. Alex drinks his tea and I'm guessing it's pretty much lukewarm by now. I want to ask him, what would being lovers mean to you. What's the recipe? What is it that tips from friends to lovers? And how can I get the right ingredients because I would really love to have something with you? Alex snorts. “I love Arielle, but being friends with her... Just friends.” He ponders on it. “Yeah, I guess it could work.” Fuck. I don't even know why I'm sad anymore. I don't even know how many more paranoia thoughts will lurk behind me during the night. “But we'll surely not remain friends, if something were to happen.” Alex puts the mug down and bites his lip, looking at me. I feel my heart sink, but I really know that it all means nothing and we're just hooking up, because I initiated it and Alex wanted to see how did it really feel to be with a fellow man. “What makes you say that?” I ask him and I wonder how the fuck does this even aid me in any way. If I would be able to get together with him, I wouldn't really care about his exes. Instead here I am sulking, because he doesn't feel the same way and he's pretty stuck with his girlfriend. “She's not one to remain friends with exes and can't say I keep too close to exes either. There's a reason things didn't work out and sacrificing friendship isn't really one of them.” Alex keeps his eyes focused on me and I can't help but look back at his brown eyes, feeling some warmth even if it's not really coated in love or anything. Just some sort of understanding and curiosity, some sympathetic feelings maybe? “You, Miles?”“Neither, frankly. I'm surprised me and Jamie keep in touch after all the feelings I had hidden.” I laugh a bit darkly. “But then he doesn't know and I would really rather keep it that way.”We both sit in silence, Alex probably thinking too much about Jamie and I can only pray that there is some jealousy, because when you're desperate you'd rather have any feelings which could resemble any love.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Take the pain away.Make me not miss you because you'd be there. What if I'm rehashing and clinging onto something that isn't there because I'm so desperately lonely? What if it all collapses? Where do I go then? I know I should think about the theory, but instead I just want to know where the fuck do we lean to and if we've already skipped the part where I could've gotten something far more significant than a lover who can discard me any day he wishes so. But then what guarantee do we have as people if even the oldest couples can divorce by the end of their lives? That gives me a shiver, to live the whole life with some person and then end up realizing that they were always the wrong one. Who was the right one then? Was it the nurse? “So...” Alex speaks up and then I just look at him. “Anything else you wanted to discuss? I'm not sure it's proper for me to dig further. I think.”He's thinking out loud. “You won't tell him.” Alex exclaims something which is understated. “There's nothing left.” I shrug, probably lying. His eyes brighten up, he's quite the gossip king from what I see. He's far too bundled up and confused about his sexuality to call him a queen. “What makes you say that?” Alex seems to have forgotten about his tea and I hadn't even started on mine. I look at his hands and I want to touch them, but I've reached such a stage where I just watch his moves and move accordingly on the chess board. I probably shouldn't be comparing it to chess, but sometimes fear takes hold of me. It feels like there is simply far too much at stake. “I just like someone else.” Is this how rushed things are? Or should we just hide our secrets forever? “Oh.” Alex seems a bit taken back, but I'm sure he knows and is very well aware. That's when he withdraws his hands and drinks some cold tea, I'm pretty sure. I wonder if he had cheated before, maybe he had with some girls and maybe it wasn't with Arielle but with someone else? How do cheaters work? Is it something I may even ask? My mood is possibly worse than I have ever imagined. “I don't think... liking one person excludes loving another or liking.”I look into his dark eyes. He shrugs. “I think.” He says. I want to kiss him so badly all of a sudden, I don't even want sex. All I want is to make out with him, just to have him here and kiss me. “Yeah, I guess. I mean, that's not what I meant-” I get cut off by my lover. Is he even a lover or am I just a fuck buddy? “That's what you said.” Alex smirks. “I'm sleeping with you too, aren't I?”He ponders for a second, looking down.“Sex doesn't necessarily always means something. But you ought to have a connection and chemistry to make it work.” I just feel even more confused. I'm pretty straightforward where I just think that I like the person and that's pretty much it and I don't care if we are fucking or not. Maybe straight people are weird or whatever Alex identifies as. Maybe I'm just too simple. I feel like we've wondered back into my theory, but I don't even know where to pick it up or how to even think of it properly, it feels like a lifetime ago with this new found web of confusion I have.Does he even like me?I feel like narrowing my eyes and asking the question, but I'm too much of a scaredy cat to even ask or let alone suggest it properly in the air. I just feel like there is everything wrong with me and he's got a lovely house with his girlfriend so why would I even meddle? How come I even managed to meddle? There is literally nothing about me, yet somehow he's sitting opposite and does that mean that something bad is going on with him and Arielle? Do I have a chance to be a homewrecker? Or-I try to focus on sex. I can't say that everything makes complete sense to me. I like them, I like them if we're fucking or not. I don't know how else to voice it out. Maybe he had slept behind her back before. He interrogated me about Jamie. “Did you ever cheat on Arielle before?” Alex shakes his head. “Anyone at all?”He shakes his head again. That would explain the anxiety and whatever had been riding him that night. Maybe it's not as scary to ask questions which are invasive after all. But is it really invasive when you've heard the other's orgasm? When does proximity start? I'm far too simple for all of this. I don't know what I'm expecting and maybe I just wish to be some sort of long term affair since I can't get the whole package no matter how hard I try. I don't know how to convey that I'm falling for him despite all this mess, that all of this is going round and round in my head and it gets worse with each thought of him. Because attraction strikes regardless of what's going on. I stare at him. “I... thought that I would manage to have sex just like that. And that it would just be cheating.” And he looks at me right in the eye for a brief second and I see all the colours in his eyes, before he looks away and I know that I won't be getting any more from him. “But it's going out of control.” I say quietly and try to catch his eyes. Alex just looks up at me and I know his answer. We both look away. I smirk. “Don't tell me you thought one time wouldn't count.”Alex's shoulders are tense, but he still nods, looking outside the window. “Once a cheater, always a cheater.” I keep on trying to hold my tongue, Alex finishes his lukewarm tea ignoring me, but the words clearly hit him. I lean towards him. “You could always...” I want to search his eyes, so I stretch my hand and pull him by the chin and we're trapped in this nervous gaze, where neither of us moves, barely blinks and is fixated on the other. Just tell her gets lost in my throat. Instead I kiss him. What if we die when we fall in love? What if we change so much that we don't recognize one another anymore? Who had we fallen in love with? I recall how Alex approached me at his party, how sure of himself he was and then how lost he felt, pinned down and desperate, then holding his ground.The kiss is different, one you would give a lover, it's slow and we hold it for long, my thumb stroking his cheek when our tongues touch each other. Once we pull back, I feel heavily post-coital, the tension gone and feelings which shouldn't even be there overflowing, which he dwells on and after all he goes to sleep with another woman by the end of the day. We both pull away embarrassed from the kiss, as Alex fixes his hair and I check the time on my phone.He goes to sleep to another woman every night. I want to light a cigarette, maybe Jamie is right.Maybe I should tell him that this is all it takes to love. “You should be going back to Arielle's.” And I am the lover, laid down on the floor, post-coital with a cigarette, already injected with my doze of love and despair from never being the husband. I would never be able to articulate a love confession, I would always hold it inside me and this is the case. Maybe I've tipped over so long ago and he's held me ever since, walking on water. But I don't feel drowning, I feel an odd love which differs from the one I've felt with Jamie, this one consumes me and flows through me like adrenaline. I don't ask him to come again, because I know he will. He doesn't excuse himself when he has to leave, because we both know. I watch him zip his leather jacket up, before he leaves and he kisses me. It's brief, but it sends electricity and tears me apart.Once he leaves I start feeling dreadful again, not sure about anything again, smoking with the window open, watching whatever is left of the stars and wondering far too much about the straight guy I had caught in my net. I knew that I would smell like an ashtray and that I already did. There is always disappointment which will never betray me, because soon enough he'll get bored of me as a toy and I will be left alone. I wondered if he even was on Grindr, what if he was looking for more guys to hook up to and opening the app for a quick lazy refresh seemed like cutting myself open with fear that I might see his familiar leather jacket. What if I was just the gate?What if I was just like any other hook up? Somehow that made me fear myself even more along with my thoughts. What if I was indeed the gate? This wasn't starting to look good, how much my loneliness was consuming me and I felt bizarre calling Jamie again. I didn't want to get started about anything. I needed to get some work done tomorrow, so it wasn't like staying awake for much longer a good idea. What if I had been the one always messaging him? I couldn't help but keep juggling fear far too much that I think even one person was supposed to. I couldn't comprehend where everything was headed. He surely liked me to some extent since he wasn't exactly discarding me. The next days I spent the time away from the phone as much as I could, just so that I could stop thinking about texting Alex. Jamie came by and we had lunch outside together, still dreading the incoming winter, which dared itself to be long by the looks of the cold which was coming towards us. I couldn't help but wonder if Alex still walked around in his leather jacket or if he wore it maybe under his coat, if he decided to wear one anyway. But I didn't mention that to Jamie, as he proceeded eating his food. It was hard to keep myself grounded. Of course, Jamie noticed it, but didn't speak much of it since I didn't raise the subject. When we were saying bye to each other, until next time I couldn't help but wonder how come I stopped chasing after him. I wondered how would I have felt if Alex wasn't actually here. How would I have acted, since Brian was now forever out of the picture? “You alright, Miles? You want me to come over?” He asked me with concerned eyes, but the thing is that I should really be putting my energy on Alex somehow. Just like Brian was out of the picture, I was out of the romantic picture once and for all and I should continue being so. “I'll be fine, man.” I replied far too quickly, which caused Jamie to be a bit taken back by the sudden reply. I knew that I was a loner, maybe I should've just accepted his offer, because frankly we both didn't have that many friends. But then maybe it was alright to think of myself and I tried to bribe myself by saying that I would just curl up and watch some comedy movie alone or that I could head to the cinema, also alone. “Alright, but you call me if anything.” Jamie said before heading off, after a brief pat on my shoulder. I nodded and soon enough he was just walking away, not even turning around. But that's the thing about turning around, you never know when the other is looking at you and what emotion have they been hiding all along. I got surprised that I hadn't died by being in bed for a good while of the next few days. I even worked from the bed, just doing nothing and barely keeping myself occupied. I don't understand if my depression was because I'm alone or I'm depressed because I'm alone. The days getting shorter to nothing don't really help either and I start wishing that I was in a much warmer place, but no one really gets to choose where life chucks them much. Or it's a snap decision and then you proceed to think it over, as time goes and maybe when it's all done and all, you'll move again, somewhere nicer. Maybe I should've spoken to Jamie. But once my phone vibrated and I realized that it can't be Jamie, who claimed to be in the shower a few minutes ago, I felt myself full of energy. I opened the text, which was Alex inviting me over to Arielle's next party. I couldn't stop grinning, instantly texting Jamie and telling his ass that he would have to come over with me once more, as my pretend boyfriend. But it didn't really ache much any longer. I couldn't hold waiting until his reply, since I knew that he would sit after the shower for a while, just doing nothing and I counted roughly how long he would take. I called not so long after. Jamie as always was pretty tired from fucking smoking himself in all that steam, groaning that he'd have to pretend all over again, but did that matter again? My best friend still went with me thankfully, his hands deep in his pockets, regretting every step of the way that we had to go to their house at this ungodly hour, at least according to him. But I knew he'd be up to no good or maybe he'd drink a bit, play some guitar and go to sleep early just to be greeted into the lukewarm arms of insomnia. I couldn't describe how grateful I was for him to constantly tag along with me. I didn't know how many years we've gone together like this, where we stopped keeping tabs on each other and just kept each other company, something like old lovers who never stopped caring, but we never got together, we just loved each other in our own twisted, platonic ways which we would never confess to the other. But Jamie was nearly a thing of the past now. I was in love with another man, someone who I didn't want to slip through my fingers, through all my cracks. I didn't even realize how hard Jamie had been staring at me, up to the point that I had to stop and ask him what the fuck was bothering him. “Why the fuck can't you just confess to the damn fella?” He asked gingerly and tapping his jacket pockets until he got a box of cigarettes and a lighter snuggle tucked into a freshly opened box, which was bulkier than his usual, looked like he came prepared for war. I was about to open my mouth and that's when Jamie spoke. “Don't you think it's wrong to lead people on?” I tried to interrupt again and he raises his finger at me. “Fucking hell, listen, Miles.”I stopped in my tracks fully now. He straightened his back and yet, he was still shorter than I was. “Don't regret anything. Just let it out. It's not coming out, where you risk it all, here you've been sleeping together for months and nothing... NOTHING is happening. You're playing behind Arielle's back. Don't you think it's better to be a boyfriend than a lover?”“He doesn't love me back, Jamie.” I shrug, looking up and trying to wonder if it's going to rain instead, but Jamie just shakes his head and we keep walking, he drops the subject, planting the seed of thought somewhere deep inside me and I can't help but keep pondering what his point really is and where it really lays. Only when we reach the door, Jamie stops, lights a new cigarette and I glare at him, Jamie flipping me off. “I'm no pretend boyfriend. I'm tired. Bisexual, gay, pan, queer, be whatever he is... He loves you. With that... I'll fuck off, thank you very much.”Arielle opens the door at the time, catching both us mid-fight or rather the tail end of it and that's when I see Alex's hand hanging around her neck and I see him pale a bit, that Jamie is leaving and his eyes follow my pretend boyfriend. “Where's he off to, Miles?” He asks me. “Fight.” I shrug it off, Arielle covers his mouth, she's clearly drunk. “I told him...” He loves you. I hear Jamie's voice ring in my ears. No, he doesn't. I snarl at the voice, but instead I walk in, explaining to both of them some bullshit about football and because they're both so intoxicated nothing really gets registered, at least by Arielle who soon waves her hand at me and joins her girlfriends. The party has way more people and cups and I'm assuming puke at the end of it, when everyone will be collapsed with plastic cups instead of actual glass cuts. “We met... which room was it, Alex?” I ask casually. “Kitchen.” He says, not thinking much and making sure that Arielle is in his field of vision and that's when I get a good, sharp look at him. I want to kiss him, here and now, I know that he would kiss me back, that everyone would stare, that a scene would be made and we would be all found out, Alex's straight cool act will be blown and everyone will know that we had been boning for a very good while, they'd forget about Jamie. But I don't do that. Instead I just grab him by the shoulder and we head outside, I tell him that I need a smoke. We smoke in complete silence with plastic cups, only mine shakes so much that Alex tells me to drink the beer before I spill it on my tight jeans. I had chosen my tightest pair somehow, but then it's as if all of them aren't as tight. I rub my eyes with my hand, getting the cigarette between my lips and the cup shaking. I look at Alex. He looks back at me. I sit a bit closer, on the fucking small bench in the backyard, which is abandoned due to the cold and those which dare outside, I don't care if they know. Alex looks down but then he looks up. “Miles-”My heart leaps as always. I put my cup down. I can go on longer. I can go on as long as needed-That's why I love him. Because he's enough. I give a wry smile. “What's up?”“You have all the time in the world.” I say, but he's not drunk enough, I just want to believe. I look up. Maybe he won't break up with Arielle and we will always bone. I see some stars, I think I see Mars and he puts an arm around me, patting me on the back, before just resting it. Jamie's wrong. I turn to look at my eternal lover and I speak, something I had never given to anyone. “I'll wait.”