If You Want to Be Common and Other

THROAM ficlets
They exist. Post-THROAM scribbles, that is. HUZZAH.

The original, actual story very much stands on its own. These ficlets have been self-indulgent to the fullest. They're short and offer small glimpses of things that I saw happening to Ryan and Brendon during their lives
together. The first ficlet was written for a reader who made some artwork for a story and who originally did not wish for me to share the ficlet with others. Consider it's been a while now, though, I figured it'd be alright to let
others read it too. :) I don't necessarily agree with my characterisation of Ryan in it, I've made him too timid, but it'd be too much effort to go change it. It's the longest ficlet there.

The fics have different POVs, so have fun with that. ;) And the third ficlet was once posted on my writing blog but it's been tweaked since. Also note how I kept writing in etymology bits into the ficlets. BECAUSE I CAN. And
the last ficlet undoubtedly has numerous errors in it. Just roll with it.

This stuff hasn't been betaed because they're just ficlets. Just for fun. All mistakes are my own. Now let's see if I still remember how to do an LJ cut...

If You Want to Be Common, I Can Claim That I Tamed You

Chicago, 1979

He’s breathing unevenly, sprawled on the messy sheets of his bed. His hair is a mess and still slightly wet from the shower that we took before getting back to bed. We’re trying to recover from tour, switch back to real time.
That’s what we tell ourselves, anyway, but the truth would paint a different picture if we let it. It’d say that we’ve cocooned ourselves in his house, built a fortress, retreated into a blissful bubble that is in no way connected
to the real world.

So what.

Let us escape a little.

The blue sheets of his bed are wrinkled and tangled, stains on them – my come, his come, drops of sweat. I don’t care.

He’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen with his flushed skin and swollen lips. I kiss him where his ribs end, my hands on his hips as I hover over him. He whines, restless, and we’ll get there, baby, we’ll get there. This
morning I let him have control, let him do what he wanted, and while it was a powerful drug, this is stronger – seeing him giving up power instead.

I lick over his taut stomach. He tastes salty – a lot of good that shower did us. I kiss next to his belly button and then nuzzle his happy trail, leading down to his pubic hair. He’s tense with anticipation, and I feel his gaze on
me as I go down. I look up to meet his brown eyes. He looks mildly disbelieving. Still. We seem to do that, be awed that we wake up together, that we can finally do this without any guilt attached. That it’s so fucking good
that we can’t keep our hands to ourselves at all.

I take a firm hold of the base of his cock and lick up a wet trail. And then, unceremoniously, I take him into my mouth.

“Shit,” he breathes, and I revel in his reaction, feel myself getting so fucking hard from seeing him come undone like this. With one hand around the base, I begin to blow him. His hips thrust slightly, and he’s biting on his
bottom lip watching me. I suck in the head of his cock. He tastes good, and my tongue runs over the head to taste pre-come he was leaking before I even took him in my mouth. He’s good to go, he’s so ready to be fucked,
but like I said – why rush it too much?

I swirl my tongue around the crown, then suck again.

“Holy shit, Ryan,” he groans, and I take it as a sign to go back to blowing him, my lips meeting my fist as I take his length into my mouth. I’m so much better at this now, even if I do say so myself, but the way that he groans
and responds to every touch, the way he can barely handle this, supports my view of me being better. I’ve got nothing but time to find out all the different things that reduce him to a whimpering mess.

I stop sucking his cock unexpectedly, leave him spiralling, wanting more. I pull back, saliva rolling down his length. The taste of his sex is in my mouth, and I fight back the urge to touch myself. Instead I place my hands on
the back of his knees and push his legs up and towards his stomach, leaving him exposed. He lets me. He wants me.

My insides drip with heat when I focus my gaze on his hole. The skin is a soft pink, and he looks like he’s recently been fucked – leaving him with residue of lube and come. But I lick that away as I lean down to kiss him
there, and his breathing hitches. He loves this. I love this.

I brush my tongue over his hole, wanting to drive him even more insane. And it works as his moans grow louder, and he says, “Baby, fucking hell, so good – Yourmouth.”

And I give him just that, kissing his hole, licking over it, tasting him. His back arches, but I keep my hands firmly pressed against the backs of his knees, letting him know that he is not allowed to move as I eat him out. He
breathes out half-moans, and if he wasn’t ready before, he is now. Pre-come decorates the head of his flushed cock, and I kiss my way back up, over his balls, his shaft, to gather the transparent substance with my tongue.

Still holding his knees bent over his stomach, I position myself between his legs. I grab the lube that’s on the bed – we keep it handy at all times. I have to suck in a breath when I apply some on my cock, and I’m so ready
to come, fucking hell. I slick myself up and toss the lube bottle back to hide somewhere in the sheets.

And this – this moment of surrender. When he lies there, breathing erratically, flushed, waiting for me. So turned on that he can barely stand it, is barely coherent, but he lets himself fall so deep into it because he knows
that he can with me. Knows that he can let go to the most burning pit of uncontrollable lust because I’ve got him, and he’s got me, and we’re allowed to go this far with each other.

I can’t resist it a second longer. I don’t need to guide my cock in – I’m hard enough for simple pressure to do the job. But I do it slow, watch his face as the head of my cock pushes him open, feel his heat engulf me, watch
his mouth drop as a dirty groan slips from his swollen, perfect lips.

“That good?” I ask, and he nods fervently, back arching. He’s reaching down to touch himself, runs his fingers over his balls, up his length. Like he can’t stand how good it feels.

And then I push in until I’m buried in him, pushing his knees out of the way as I lean forwards, my cock sinking into him. He fists my hair as I lean down to kiss him, our mouths sealing in a dirty and desperate kiss. He
sounds so dirty now that I’m in him, mild pain flickering beneath the pleasure as he adjusts to my size.

“Fuck, you’re so desperate for it,” I say against his lips, awed that he’s acting like he hasn’t been fucked three times the past twelve hours.

“Please,” he moans, his voice deep but needy.

“How hard do you want it?” I ask, now starting to work my hips, my cock trapped in his tight warmth. “Really hard or really fucking hard?”

It’s a rhetorical question and he doesn’t answer. He doesn’t have to.

I rest my palms on the mattress just above his shoulders, supporting myself as I begin to fuck him. I keep my eyes on him, watching him being fucked, the way his brows knit together, the way he tosses his head, the way
he bites on his lips, moans, swears, looks at me with wide eyes and breathes through the pleasure. And I work my hips – hard, then pausing, going slow, going shallow, going deep again. I lift one of his legs on my
shoulder, and it helps me to go in even harder. His bed shakes, he mumbles nonsense. Sweat rolls down my back, and my cock is throbbing.

I know he’s about to come because his muscles begin to seize up around my length. He has hair stuck to his forehead, and mine, I think, and mine because he lets me.

He’s fisting his cock now, his free hand twisting the sheets. His body is full of unreleased tension, and his muscles spasm, his taut stomach looking even tauter, rippled as his muscles quiver. Microscopic drops of
perspiration decorate his skin all over, and he’s looking at me straight in the eye, getting off on watching me like I’m getting off on watching him.

I lean down to kiss him again, kiss his lips, move to his neck and bite down. He likes that – I know that he does, it makes him groan. I feel his hand between our stomachs, stroking more vehemently.

“I want to come on you,” I say with the little sense I have left. Want to mark him, smear my come on him –

“Ry, holy fuck.” And then he grabs my hair painfully, pulling me closer, and bites onto a patch of skin just behind my ear, muffling his groan as he comes. I feel him spilling between us, his body vibrating, shaking, and his
muscles grip my cock. His nose is squashed against my skin as he holds me tightly where I am, breathing unevenly as he keeps coming. It takes every ounce of control not to come but to fuck him through it.

When his death hold of my hair loosens, I rise to sit on my knees between his legs. I hastily pull out, mesmerised by the view of my flushed cock sliding out of him, his stretched hole that looks well fucked, Jesus  Christ –

His stomach has come splatters on it, white semen rolling over his knuckles as he holds his cock, and I fist my own dick fast and hard. He watches me with eyes full of fire, gaze dropping to my cock, and I’m so hard for
him right now that I can’t.

And then I come, shooting my load on him, his stomach, his balls, his hole. And it’s the hottest fucking thing ever, and I come more than I should be able to from having come so many times already.

“God, Bren...” I breathe once I’m done, trying to catch my breath. I let go of my member and let my fingers slide on his skin instead. Gathering my come, pushing some of it into his hole. This makes him rigid, makes him
seize up, makes him sigh as he comes down.

He sits up on the bed, his still parted legs by my sides. His hand slides to the back of my neck, bringing me in for a kiss. He tastes like sweat.

We breathe against each other’s mouths, lips grazing. “You’re so bad for me,” he says, and I smile into the kiss.

“How so?”

One of my hands is gently sliding up and down his side, the other is on his knee, dancing over the skin and hair.

“I’ll never be able to have sex with anyone else because you’ll spoil me.”

“You’ve figured out my plan, then,” I say, and he laughs, his nose brushing mine. My eyes dart down his body, and I feel a sense of pride from the mess that he now is. “Lie down.”

His eyes don’t leave mine as he obeys.

I get out of bed, briefly leaving the bedroom. I grab a hand towel in his bathroom, run it under hot water to wet it.

My eyes land on the toothbrush mug.

Two toothbrushes now.

Next to the mug is a tiny bar of soap: Savoy Hotel, London.

I let my fingers brush over the text, feeling myself frown.

He’s still in bed, still waiting for me. I sit on the edge and silently begin to clean him, running the towel across his stomach, then down over his pubic hair. He pulls me to lie down next to him once I’m done, throwing covers
on us as I drop the towel by the bed. He snuggles right up to me, not asking, not hesitating. We entwine together, exchanging lazy kisses.

“How much time have we got?” I ask, and he shrugs like that’s inconsequential.

“Why?”

He picks up on that instantly. And I could say ‘no reason’ but he’s caught me. He’s unnervingly good at that.

“I was just thinking that. I don’t know, that maybe you could... tell me about London.”

“You were there.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

His nose brushes against mine, his fingers slowly moving on my bare arm. “No.”

“No?” I repeat in surprise. “Why not?”

He shrugs. “Why should I? So that you can be jealous about it?”

“I didn’t say that,” I argue, placing a lingering kiss on his swollen lips. He tastes sweet and intoxicating.

I wouldn’t be jealous. He’s here with me. And all we do is sleep and have sex and sleep and have sex, and then we clean up, and then we realise we’re starving, and we’ve emptied the kitchen of canned tuna already, and
soon we’ll have to leave his house. Soon.

I wish Brendon hadn’t picked up the phone this morning, I wish he had just let it ring. Keep the outside world away for a while longer as we sleep on each other in positions that shouldn’t be comfortable but somehow are.

“I wouldn’t be jealous about it,” I now repeat. “You said you almost slept with Dallon that night. I just want to…”

And I drift off, wait for him to respond.

He seems to consider this, but then he clears his throat. He shifts under the covers, lifts his head higher up on the pillow. “Well,” he says, a hand moving to now catch a strand of my hair, and he rolls it between his fingers
as he speaks. “We went on that date, and it was – it was a really good date, and. I was upset with you. Earlier that week, that hot guy at the pub –”

“Chris.”

He makes a face at the name. “Chris. Sure.”

“You gonna be jealous about it?”

“No,” he says but it sounds like he is. “I’m just – I don’t like that you were sleeping with others so soon after we broke up the first time.”

“I should’ve been mourning?” I clarify, and he shrugs. “But I was mourning. The kid was it. And you were doing the same, sleeping with guys to forget about me, I know you were.”

He kisses me quickly, nods like that’s enough. Okay. Let’s not get into that. I’m in his bed. We’re us now, we’re us, him and me.

“Okay,” I say as he pulls back. We tangle together possessively, my hand squeezing his bare hip under the covers. Okay. “You were upset about Chris,” I say, helping him along.

“Yeah. I spent most of that date thinking about you,” he says, tracing my jaw line with his thumb. “As sad as that is. And Dallon and I got caught in the rain, and I was pretty drunk, and...” He sighs like he’s unsure of what to
say.

“And then you were flirting outside your room, holding hands, clothes soaked,” I supply, and he stares at me in surprise. I shrug. “I have spies. I hear things.”

“Clearly.”

“Clearly,” I agree. I pause for a moment. Conjure up the unpleasant mental image. “You went into the room.”

“Yeah.”

“But you didn’t fuck.”

“No.”

“But you almost did.”

“It was heading there but then I stopped us,” he says, and hot jealousy instantly burns in me. So much for that.

I think of Dallon wanting him, and at the time I was willing to be fine with it. Not now. I swallow down the foul bile and just nod.

He goes on with, “And I don’t know, Dallon and I were making out on the bed, but it just – I couldn’t get my mind off of you. I didn’t want him in that bed, I wanted you. Fuck…” His voice drops into a whisper as his lips ghost
over mine again. “I wanted you.”

But I stall. “So you told him to go.”

“Said I was tired.”

“Because you wanted me.”

“Because I love you.”

I still haven’t gotten used to him saying that – I don’t know if he has either, but he keeps saying it as if to remind me, to reassure me. He loves me. It’s like a dream of some kind, and the punchline is his love for me, but it’s
not a joke. 

“That enough?” he asks.

I breathe in. Force the mental images of him and Dallon on a hotel bed to disappear. “Yeah.”

And we’ll never talk about London again, even if the thought of Dallon coveting Brendon angers me. It’s different with Dallon – his feelings were returned to an extent. But I got Brendon, I got him. I keep reminding myself of
that.

Who knew how good it could be? I didn’t.

The urge to have Brendon again is strong and present, but instead we get out of bed after five more minutes of stray kisses, soft and slow. Because Brendon promised. Because the outside world will not let us be.

I get dressed, and half of the clothes I put on are his, half mine. I need to go to Machias soon.

I sit on the edge of his bed and watch him going through his drawer to find a shirt to wear. Admire his strong shoulders, his back, admire my nail marks here and there.

God, I love him.

I look away.

Machias can wait.

But the bubble of the past few days seems to be slowly bursting as he and I get ready to go. The snow outside his house is nearly untouched once more – we’ve only taken one trip to stock up on food and then we locked
ourselves in again.

Brendon makes a comment on the weather as we walk to his car, no longer hidden by snow because we managed to get that much done, and I agree that it’s not as cold anymore, get on the passenger seat. He backs out
of the driveway, head turned, and I put the radio on and press into my seat and look out of the window. He hums along to songs, and the drive passes in silence, but it’s a good silence. I listen to his voice and smile at the
views passing by. It’s late in the day, we’re late, we know. But we’re going.

The further we get from his house, the more a sudden nervousness begins to engulf me. I pretend it’s not there.

His hand lands on my knee when we’re waiting for lights to change. I feel the touch everywhere, like I’m wrapped up in it. Then he lifts his hand back to the gear stick, and I wish he wouldn’t go.

Brendon parallel parks outside Jon’s house.

“You’re gonna hit that car,” I tell him when he reverses into the narrow space.

“I won’t, just –”

“You’re too close –”

“Shut up, I –”

“Would you listen?!”

“I’m good at this!” he snaps back, and then he manages to fit his car between the other two as if only to annoy me. And then he gives me a smug look, and I ignore it and get out of the car.

The lights are on in Jon’s house. I take in a deep breath looking at it.

Brendon’s rounded the car and his shoulder brushes against mine. “I’m hungry,” he says simply and heads up the pathway, but it’s a ‘come on, then’, and he looks at me to make sure I follow. And I do, hands stuck in my
pockets. Just dinner with Cassie and Jon. Nothing I haven’t done before.

Jon opens the door with a big smile on his face. “Hey, get in here! It’s cold out!”

Brendon greets him like he normally would, with a brief hug, and I close the door and force a smile at Jon. It’s not Jon’s fault – he’s clearly trying to act as normal as he can.

Maybe this is normal. The new normal.

Cassie is quick to come over and say hi to us, too. We never saw her at the airport when we returned from Europe. Brendon gives her a big hug, and then she gives me one too – albeit not as big – probably because it’d be
more awkward if she didn’t give me a hug.

“Jon’s told me all about the tour,” she says, leading us into the kitchen. I realise then that we’re the only guests – Mike’s in New York, Bob’s flight back from Germany isn’t for another few days, Ian is in rehab in Las Vegas,
and Dallon is – well, he’s in town, and I thought that he’d be invited, but I guess not. Which is just as well because Dallon is not on my list of people I’d love to see. But then – then it occurs to me that this might be a double
date, a couples’ night in.

I lag behind to put some more distance between Brendon and me.

“Yeah, we had such a fantastic time, the crowds were amazing,” Brendon says.

“You guys want beers?” Jon asks as Cassie goes back to onion chopping.

“I’ll have one,” Brendon says, then looks at me. “You don’t. You’re driving us back.”

“I am?” I ask, put off by this because he didn’t tell me. But he just nods, accepting a beer from Jon. Jon looks at me questioningly, but I shake my head in the end, feeling pussy whipped. If I’m driving, I’m not drinking.

“So,” Jon says. He’s rolling on the balls of his feet. He looks between Brendon and me. “What you guys been up to?”

Brendon almost chokes on his beer and ends up clearing his throat. I look at the floor tiles, feeling horribly self-conscious.

It’s been, what? Four days?

Four days of –

“Jonathan Jacob Walker,” Cassie now huffs, still chopping onions. “What do you think they’ve been up to?”

There is a moment of embarrassment that Jon and I share, at least, because Jon pales and looks like he wants the ground to swallow him whole. And it’s  true, of course it’s true, but it’s not a conversation topic for Jon and
me.

Brendon is less fazed – he grins, even, looks momentarily smug. “Like you two are any better,” he says, and I relax. Cassie blushes somewhat.

That helps, Brendon bringing it down to their level. And maybe I’m arrogant with my love, but it feels like going down. Because I bet no one else would understand this connection, what it feels like, how intense it is. What
it’s like to wake up next to him. I bet no one else –

Only I get it. Only he gets it. Only us and a thousand little love songs.

“So what’s for dinner?” Brendon asks, and Jon regains his composure.

We talk about the tour and the band over dinner as Cassie and Brendon drink too much wine. And it’s not like anything is different, really. The conversation is lively, the food is good, I’m amongst friends. And yet it’s
fundamentally different – I am fundamentally different. Brendon sits next to me, and my thoughts circle him even as the topic of conversation is something completely different. I admire the way he twirls pasta around his
fork, the way his Adam’s apple moves when he drinks wine, and the way his fingers briefly touch his chin when he’s formulating a thought, and I admire the way he looks at me every now and then – or often, maybe,
someone might say constantly, but no, often – because he manages to make my stomach drop every time, but that I hide.

“So Ryan,” Cassie says halfway through, and I focus on her. “Will you be moving to Chicago for good?”

I blink at her. Have no idea what to say. “Uh.”

Jon looks equally inquisitive. Brendon swoops in with, “We haven’t really talked about that yet.” And he shrugs it off like it’s no big deal, smiling firmly.

“Oh.” Cassie sounds surprised, staring at me. “Are you planning to stay in Maine?”

“No,” I say, frowning. “No, I don’t think so.” I feel like the centre of attention, even with just three people. I avoid my gaze and pierce a piece of chicken with my fork. “I might move back to New York.”

Cassie only nods, perhaps having realised that she’s made me uncomfortable. Brendon, however, is staring at me. “New York?” he asks. I nod, and a frown flickers on his face. He gives me a reassuring smile that doesn’t
quite reach his eyes. “I mean, sure. New York.”

We move onto another topic quickly, but when we’ve all finished eating, I still feel like I’ve spoken out of turn. I offer to take the dishes away. “You cooked, it’s the least I can do,” I tell Cassie who remains seated with a
grateful smile – maybe impressed, even. What a changed man he is, this Ryan, now that he and Brendon –

I breathe easier once I’m in the kitchen. I leave the dishes by the sink, placing my hands on the counter and trying to calm down. I feel the foolish indulgence of the past few days washing away fast. Not so smart after all,
are we?

Of course there’d be questions. We should have known that. It needs to be explained, it needs to be given a name. But we haven’t done that – I’ll fuck him in twenty different positions without asking what he sees for us in
the future. Too greedy and caught up in the now.

“You alright?” Brendon’s voice comes from behind me just then, and I swirl around. He’s got his plate with him.

“Yeah, sure,” I nod as he sets it aside slowly, calculatedly. He’s followed me on purpose and he now stands too close to me. He studies me keenly. I crack. “No,” I admit, breathing out unsteadily. I look towards the
doorway, hearing Jon and Cassie’s voices, making sure we’re alone. “I’m just, uh, just overwhelmed. I don’t know how to do this. I’m –  We’re unprepared for this, their questions and –”

“We can figure all that stuff out,” Brendon says instantly, a hand pressing against my side soothingly. “We just haven’t thought that far yet, okay? But we will.”

I nod. Okay. He’s right, of course. We just haven’t naturally reached that point yet, and now it feels like others are pushing us. And five years, after nearly five long years, can’t we take it at our own pace? And what if we
rush things, what if we mess it up, and –

“Would you relax?” he laughs, and I manage to chuckle. I’m being an idiot, I know. He smiles and says, “Come here.” He attempts to pull me closer, but my eyes immediately dart to the door again. This makes the smile on
his face disappear, and his hand remains on my hip but he stops trying to pull me in.

“Sorry,” I say, feeling like a dick. “Sorry, I just - I just don’t know what we’re calling this, alright? I don’t know. What are we? I mean, are we a couple?”

He looks confused, but remains where he is. “I think we’re strong and we’re good. And we’re together. Of course we are. Aren’t we?”

“Of course,” I say, quick to agree with him. I can’t imagine ever introducing him as my boyfriend – a boyfriend, what is that? Something you have in high school. What we have runs so much deeper than that.

And now I step closer to him, capture his lips in a kiss. It’s so distracting, being near him, knowing that his lips are mine to kiss, yet not kissing him. He tastes like white wine, cool moisture on his lower lip, and he smiles
into it. His hand comes up to press against my neck, and I firmly place one hand on the small of his back, the other brushing hairs at the nape of his neck. He opens up for me easily, deepening the kiss as he tilts his head,
his tongue brushing mine. Electric nerves spark up in me. The kiss is slow and deep, and it’s good and strong like we are. It’s just a bit filthy, just a bit calm, just a bit reassuring.

“Oh,” Jon’s voice cuts in. We’re both quick to break the kiss, to step back, wipe our mouths as we turn to Jon, who’s walked in and looks like he doesn’t know what to do with himself. But I don’t step back that much, and I
don’t feel embarrassed for too long. I include Jon’s kitchen on my list of places where I can kiss the man I love if I’m so inclined.

I’m learning to trust that it’s not folly this time, that I’m not getting carried away with it.

We stay for an hour longer before it seems acceptable to say goodnight. Jon doesn’t ask about how long I’ll be in town for, just says that he’ll see me later.

As he threatened, Brendon makes me drive. The sun has set, but the street lights keep the world illuminated. He curls up on the passenger seat, saying that he’s tired. I don’t know if I’ve ever paid as much attention to
driving and to traffic as I do just then, working my way from Jon’s bigger house back to Brendon’s smaller one, my palms getting slightly sweaty on the wheel when I realise that Brendon’s fallen asleep. At least I’m a
smooth driver, then.

It takes me roughly ten minutes to wake Brendon up when we’re back at his house. It seems cruel to stir him when he has his head pressed against the window, eyes firmly closed, lips pressed together, breathing in deep.
And I’m fine sitting here, just watching him. Picturing us now engaging with the world outside his house, us in New York, at Spencer’s house, having dinner with my friends or his. Not being solitary figures anymore but
halves of something.

Being halves even when we’re thousands of miles apart.

I need to go to Machias soon. I can’t keep putting it off.

New York’s a good step. Get my stuff back there. Sell that monstrosity of a house in Machias.

Okay, it’s not a monstrosity. That house was just neglected. It just needed some love. I wasn’t truly able to give it.

Brendon and I will make plans. Whatever we decide, I hope that we won’t be apart for too long. I don’t think I’d handle it all that well, missing him. I’d handle it, sure, but not  well.

“Baby, we’re here,” I say at length, slowly brushing his cheek with my forefinger. He stirs almost instantly, blinking at me owlishly and then looking through the windscreen.
“Oh. Hey.” He sits up straight, smiling softly and sleepily, pleased that we’re here, pleased to see me. And then he says, “Hey,” eyeing me, his smile widening, and then he has a fistful of my coat and is pulling me closer for
a kiss. And we shouldn’t kiss in a car that’s in his driveway, not even late at night when it’s dark, because someone might walk by, someone might see.

Reason – what a useless thing for love.

We end up making out in the car, leaning towards each other to meet in the middle. And I just want to kiss him repeatedly because we have so much catching up to do. He soon says, “We should get inside,” and I fully
agree because the car windows are getting fogged up and desire has started to burn in me.

I lock the car as he hurries to the front door, getting his keys out. I take one glance at the street, one car coming towards us some houses away, and no one else in sight. Good.

Even though there is nothing suspicious about two guys walking into a house together. Of course not.

“Hey, so I was thinking,” Brendon says as he finds the right key and pushes it into the lock, “that I should have a key cut for you, too. For the house. For convenience.”

“Yeah, sure,” I say, and he gets the door open, looks over his shoulder at me with a grin.

We are whatever we are, no need to put labels on it.

But it’s irreversible. Now that we’ve become us, there is no way we can ever go back. And I don’t think either of us minds.

Machias, 1979

To put it mildly, he’s gorgeous. To torture myself some more, he’s tall and muscular, has deep blue eyes and a rugged manly appearance. His short hair is coal black and his chin and cheeks have heavy afternoon shadow.
He’s standing in the doorway of this house.

The house is likewise gorgeous, but it’s a porcelain doll. Beautiful at first glance, in a light blue dress with white frills, but then you notice the dead glass eyes. The emptiness of the rooms. The silence of the ocean.

Ryan didn’t want me here. He didn’t want me to come. I insisted, rightly so.

Now, maybe foolishly.

I descend the stairs slowly, unsure. Ryan looks over his shoulder at me from where he is at the door, appearing anxious, but then he blinks the expression away to looking blank – but he fails just a little. I meet the gaze of
the visitor, who looks affronted by the sight of me, and my jaw sets tight and my hands curl into fists, which is stupid, I know, and what if Ryan insisted that I didn’t come because –

That’s petty and weak, and I don’t want to be either. So I stop at the bottom and say, “Hello.”

The man nods. Lips pursed. Taking me in, measuring me up like I did to him.

“Clifton just came by to drop something off,” Ryan says.

And I nod, excessively so. “Okay.” And Ryan waits. And Clifton waits. And I wait. And, oh. I’m the intruder. Oh, alright. I force myself not to frown. “I’ll just be in the living room, then?”

Ryan nods and looks grateful. Spiders that cannot be real appear in my belly and run along the walls, making me feel sick, but I force myself to give Ryan and Clifton privacy. I close the living room door behind myself,
even, just to prove how mature I am about this, how I understand, and then I pace in the living room, twisting my hands, trying to eavesdrop. And in the hall Clifton says, “You’re selling the house?” and Ryan says, “Yeah,”
and Ryan sounds awkward. And then there are words I can’t make out, and I wonder if Ryan’s lips are mine now, if that’s something I can reserve or if it’s assumed, if that’s within or beyond a boundary he’s comfortable
with.

How elementary. How childish. Twenty-eight, and I act like I’m eighteen.

I know it’s paranoia. The word’s Greek in origin, literally means beyond mind, which I feel describes the sensation of it so accurately. The vicious scenarios of what might be going on in the hall are things that cannot be
contained by my mind.

I sit down in the big armchair, my feet firmly on the ground, legs apart, and I lean forward and rest my elbows on my knees as I chew on my fingernails. Wait. Sigh. Pull on my hair some as Ryan, my Ryan, and that man...
Goddammit. Fuck. Shit.

And then the front door slams shut. I flinch. Sit up straight. Nothing else happens. I don’t even breathe. Then a car engine starts out front. A car turns around. Drives away.

And only then does Ryan push the living room door open, and it’s as if we’ve never seen each other before. Not like this. He stays there, staring at me with an expression that I have no idea how to read. It’s terrifying, that
moment. When I just can’t read him at all.

“Well,” I say eventually, forcing a smile. “He’s a looker.”

Petty.

I don’t recognise myself. Don’t recognise the resentment in my voice.

He begins to say something, but I cut him off. “Yeah, I know. It’s fine. I’m fine. Of course it’s fine, we weren’t – You were free to. And look at him, fuck, I don’t blame you.”

“I didn’t want this,” he says quietly.

Ignore me, I’m just jealous, I want to say. Ignore me.

And I wish he’d walk out, roll his eyes at me, bang the door behind himself, tell me to come find him when I’ve stopped being absurd because he can very well have a conversation or ten with all the men he’s fucked, and
it’d still be none of my business. But he doesn’t say that. He just looks guilty, and that makes it worse because it fills me with fear, and I try to fight off a headache, alongside greed and jealousy, and I ask, “Were you
planning to see him?”

“No.”

“If you’d come alone.”

“No.” He pauses slightly. “I was hoping not to see him at all. Disappear, really. A dick move, but why pretend I’m nicer than that?”

I don’t want to be placated yet. “Did you kiss him?”

“What?”

“Just now.”

Now Ryan does seem annoyed, and it’s comforting. “No.”

“No? Because I – I meant what I said at Jon’s that day, that we don’t need labels. But then, we haven’t talked boundaries, and maybe we should. But if you restrict something, it dies. If you decide that something has to be
a certain thing, and then you don’t let it evolve because you’re so determined that –”

“What?” Ryan asks, looking confused as he walks in further. I stand up, shrug and sigh and hate myself. I don’t even know. But the spiders are in my stomach, and Clifton was beautiful, and Ryan might have had no plans
of calling Clifton, but Clifton showed up the second that he heard Ryan was back in town, and why wouldn’t he? And they have been in this house by themselves plenty, plenty of times. And what did they talk about, what
did they do? Well, they fucked. I know that. And I don’t like it. It’s not the sexy kind of history where it might be a turn on to know what kind of stuff Ryan’s done with some hot guy, this kind is all bad. Because it went on for
months, and Clifton looked hurt when he realised that Ryan hadn’t returned alone, or pissed off, maybe, I’m not sure.

“Okay, let’s try –” Ryan says, then fumbles. “Hey. Sorry about that just then. That was awkward as hell. I didn’t want you to see him. Or this house, for that matter. But I’m not... going to say that the time I spent here, and
the people I spent it with, don’t mean anything. They mean something. And it was what I needed at the time, what helped me to get by. Alright? I’m not sorry for that. But I am sorry for that look on your face.”

I hang my head just then. Maybe he’s making himself impossible to read, but I’m being obvious.

“Listen,” he says, voice now soft. “I don’t need those things anymore because it’s different now. You’re here. Okay? Is that- Is that alright?”

And of course that’s alright, and I nod.

“Okay,” Ryan breathes, relieved, and hugs me. The darkness in me lingers, however, and so I pull him to me possessively. If only I could own him, but I can’t. That’s where trust comes in. I know this, we know this.

I still blow Ryan in the living room like I’ve got something to prove. Push him down to sit on the armchair, ask, “Did he ever do this to you here?” He shakes his head dizzily because I’ve kissed him breathless already. And I
just think good, good, good, and then I get his cock out and I suck it like it’s all I want to do for the rest of my life – which it is, figuratively. And I put everything into it, suck him so hard, take him so deep, and he tastes so
good, and I’m so fucking hard, and I want him to shoot his come down my throat and call me baby, which he soon does. His hands get tangled in my hair. Cursing. Sucking in his stomach. Biting on his bottom lip.

He comes fucking hard.

And it feels better after that. The fear and the darkness subside. I feel like myself again.

I stay between his parted legs, kneeling in front of him in the living room of his sad, beautiful house. I made him sad. He made me sad. Back in the day.

I nuzzle his right hip bone, kiss it gently. He can’t speak yet, he just breathes unevenly as he comes down, holding onto my hair.

“You know I wouldn’t kiss anyone except you,” he manages eventually. “You know that. You know.”

But I say nothing, even if he’s right.

“Brendon, for fuck’s –”

“Take me to bed,” is all I say. And he sighs, and he relaxes, and he does.
 Along Interstate 15, 1981

I am going to live today.

The curtains of the motel room are a faded yellow, and sunlight penetrates them easily, makes them look transparent. We’ve slept in, we’re somewhere – there was a desert, a long stretch of road. Ryan drove until he
couldn’t.

He lies next to me on the narrow bed, breathing evenly. I’ve hardly slept, but I haven’t dared to move. His breaths calm me. Remind me: I am going to live today.

He wakes up eventually. He turns around, sleep still imprinted on his features, and he says, “Hey,” fingers running through my hair, and I fake a smile and he knows it. His eyes look searching, and I look away.

The car is ours – or his, or mine. Who paid for it, I’m not sure of, but this is the first big drive we’ve taken in it. We’d test it, he said. A road trip. It’d be fun.

The scenery begins to flash by like it did yesterday.

After a long silence, Ryan says about a car crash, and I’m more alert. Ahead of us, two cars have hit each other – one on each side of the road and metal waste and car bits on the road. A woman is helping a man out of a
trashed car. His arm seems to be bleeding. Two unharmed cars are there, too, having stopped already.

They motion us to keep driving, that they’ve got it covered, help is on the way.

So we keep driving.

What could he and I do to help, anyway? I know nothing about car crashes. He knows some, but he doesn’t let it show.

He puts the radio on, Reverie by Debussy, and the sound of it lulls me to sleep at last. That, and his hand on my knee. And I breathe in dry air, windows rolled two inches down to let a breeze in, but it’s windy outside and
it’s picking up the sand.

And sand, you know, sand is just tiny, tiny rocks. And rocks outlive us, have already. Millions of years old. So it is immortality that gets in the car, and our car will one day stop working, and it will then rust and be
demolished someday when he and I are dead already, but that’ll be alright. As long as it’s decades away, as long as we spend those decades together.

He wakes me up. He’s switched the engine off. I’ve slept through it, and it almost spirals me into a panic at first, because I know those cemetery gates suddenly ahead of us. They remind me of my grandmother. I was
seven, and her face looked plastic and wrong, and then the ground swallowed her up, and every Christmas we came here to light candles for the dead, and then – fast-forward.

He must have driven down Main Street. I slept right through it.

Am glad I did.

Thankfully there are no red lights in any of the crossings. The town’s too small for that. Or was over ten years ago. Hopefully no one saw me.

Ryan’s chin is covered in thick stubble, and he rubs over the hairs now, eyes on the gates. He’s put his sunglasses on.

Late afternoon. Salt in the air.

“I won’t force you,” he says, but that’s just his polite way to say that he’s forcing me. We drove out here, him and me. Because it was time. Because he had to shake me out of a bad dream one too many times.

Guilt, that’s all.

Here’s looking at you, kid.

The cemetery stretches green to all directions with white, pale headstones in neat rows, and Ryan tells me the origin of the word cemetery, that it comes from the Greek for ‘to put to sleep’. We’re in a place where people
have been put to sleep.

His sunglasses are a yellowy brown, so I can see his eyes through the lenses. He’s calm. That makes one of us.

I didn’t bring flowers. “Should I have brought flowers?” I ask, beginning to worry, if there was a protocol, if I missed it.

I’m fine back home, swimming in and out of different scenes, making a crowd laugh, having a beer for breakfast because we have nothing else. I’m smooth, I’m charming, I’m happy.

Not here.

The place where people have been put to sleep is outside the town itself, so it gives me breathing space. I focus on my mission, try to, don’t think of the last time I was in this town, the last time, the last time.

“You don’t need flowers,” he says, and we’ve reached the middle of the cemetery that’s surprisingly large for such a small town – large families, you see. He looks around. “So where to?”

“We don’t need to do a Good, The Bad and The Ugly.”

And then I head to our left, towards the oak tree that I still remember. Like a lighthouse, a marker. And I walk more slowly, but he says nothing of it. Just follows me. Doesn’t say anything.

We visited his dad the other day. I’ve seen him at his worst. I saw what it did to him.

My turn now.

What a road trip. Let’s be sure never to repeat it.

I find my grandmother: Marian. Dead 1958. And there are cousins and second cousins and great aunts and uncles, all buried close to one another. Marian had twelve children, that I know. No idea how many grandchildren,
but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was more than a hundred in the end.

A few tombstones down is a newer looking headstone. That has to be it.

I approach it, and it’s funny how his death now seems real. I’ve been away, I might as well pretend that he’s still alive. Not like we’d have any contact, anyway.

But my brother dies as I walk to his grave: Matthew Jeremiah Urie, 15th of October 1944 – 4th of August 1974. And then it’s real because the engraving says it is. And I realise how long it took for me to get here. How
many years.

The day is too beautiful for someone to die.

I can’t comprehend it.

Matt’s been decomposing while I was busy pretending otherwise. That’s inexcusable.

I don’t know for how long I stare at the grave, but suddenly Ryan’s next to me again. His hand slides into mine habitually, and his touch is firm and warm. I doubt he’ll ever know the calming effect that the reassuring hold
has on me.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

Well, me and Matt never got along, anyway. Age gap. I was the annoying brat of a little brother. He picked on me. What does it matter? I didn’t keep in touch with him or anyone else at all, only found out about his death
because Audrey had some contacts in town.

It doesn’t matter whether Matt lives or dies. On paper, it doesn’t.

But Ryan’s more intelligent than that, so he gives me his condolences, and I take them silently and gratefully and with a broken heart.

“I should’ve brought flowers,” I say, pulling my hand free and turning away. Wipe my cheeks and look at the hundreds of graves, little lives, little souls.

“Next time you will,” he lies. Yeah, next time.

The wind ruffles the brown locks of his hair. His mouth is a thin line, his suit is brown corduroy, the angles of his shoulders are sharp, and his profile is tall and lean, and his Adam’s apple protrudes clearly as he looks up
momentarily, and I wonder what he sees in that sky above us.

I’m alright going with him. It feels like a farewell to loss, going with him.

Back to the car. No one has seen us. We have seen no one. Back to the passenger seat.
He takes his sunglasses off, runs his long fingers through his hair, and I try to smile at him but can’t.

“I’m proud of you,” he says. “I know that wasn’t easy.”

“What, walking?”

Some poor attempt to keep him out. Hey, a boy can try.

And he chuckles, and I know, I can’t keep him out. He’s on the inside. A part of me. Let me write you a million love songs, because I will.

Hey, Matt. I know you can’t hear me, I know your bones are dust. But you taught me to whistle. That’s been handy, thank you. I don’t know if you ever gave much thought to your little brother who ran away – but he was
diseased, so it was better that way. I wonder if you agreed. I wonder if you ever missed me.

But hey Matt, I came by today, and I’m alright. You cross my mind sometimes. Not often, but sometimes. I have a family these days, and he’s sitting next to me.

I’m alright now.

“You wanna sit here for a while?” Ryan offers, no rush. But I shake my head. Turn on the radio. Change stations. My song is on. I try to change channels, but he swats my hand away, says that he likes listening to me sing.
I say it’s narcissistic, but he says it’s not if he subjects me to it.

He starts the engine. I lean over and kiss him.

I am going to live today.

Nashville, 1982

“We’ve got a visitor, you guys,” Clark announces, and the heads in the live room turn. The guys look surprised and pleased at the sight of me, but I give them only a quick glance before my eyes find Ryan’s. A small sun
erupts in my chest and radiates warmth, and it manages to kill the sickening burn of the past few weeks but not all of it. It’s a sad kind of joy.

At that moment it’s hard not to cross the studio and bury myself in his arms, but I manage.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in Pittsburgh?” Ryan asks, voice faint as he stares at me like an apparition. I was in Pittsburgh yesterday. Not anymore.

“The band’s in town for the day, so I thought I’d come say hi,” I explain like it’s the most natural thing in the world, like it’s not a complete lie.

I know the session musicians, Patrick amongst them, all good guys, and so I shake hands with the lot. Ryan’s put his guitar away in the meanwhile, and I turn to him – finally, at last, and I haven’t seen him in two and a half
months, Jesus fucking Christ, and he hasn’t been shaving, and his hair’s longer, and he’s become even more attractive somehow. But he’s not alright. There’s something broken in his eyes when he looks at me, but it’s
overtaken by kindness and then that look that he only gives me, the warm one.

“Good to see you,” I say as one would to a bandmate. It’s an understatement, and my voice cracks, and god, I’m so exhausted but so happy to be here.

He says nothing. He just hugs me, a full body hug, firm and tight and warm, and I press into it, cling onto him. Press my nose against his neck and inhale, and god, that’s good, that’s the best scent in the world. Count to
five. Then let go, reluctantly. 

“Let’s take a break,” Ryan says to the others, his eyes barely leaving mine.

“Yeah?” I ask, looking around quickly. “I’d love to hear what you’re working on.”

“No, you don’t,” Ryan says in a self-deprecating manner, and I let it slide instead of picking up a fight on the spot. But it is tempting, because he’s got the wrong attitude, he’s in that angry mindset, and I usually don’t let him
get away with it. But then I’m just too tired. Kept nodding off on the plane. I’m too tired to do anything.

One of the guys passes me a beer, and I take it gratefully even as I feel my smile turning into a forced one when Luke, the keyboardist, starts chatting away. Luke’s not even six words in, however, when Ryan does a shoo
motion with his hand, directed vaguely at the room as he then scuffles with the sleeve of his chestnut coloured dress shirt.

The movement shuts Luke up efficiently, and he’s left rubbing his ginger goatee in mild embarrassment. But Patrick says, “I could really do with some fresh air,” and the others seem to agree. They’re clearly used to Ryan
sending them away on a whim. Clark’s the last one to leave, closing the door to the live room. He beckons the assistant sound engineer behind the glass to go with him, and the guy removes his headphones and follows.  

I turn to Ryan to say that they’re gone now, but I’m greeted by his lips instead. I spill the beer a little, but don’t give a fuck. The constant yearning wanes some, feels calmed down. His hand moves to the side of my neck,
calloused fingertips. “What are you doing here?”

“Missed you,” I say honestly. “I was – It wasn’t good. I wasn’t good. I missed you.”

“When do you have to go?”

“Tonight. I caught a morning flight, need to be on a plane to New York in seven hours. I know it – Stupid, I know, Mike couldn’t believe it –”

“I’m glad. I’m really, really glad,” he says, and I pull him to me and hug him stubbornly. “You haven’t been sleeping,” he says accusingly as he holds me, and I only nod. Sleep eludes me. “You haven’t been eating either,”
he then says, even more accusingly, and again I just nod. “You idiot.”

“I don’t have time.”

“It’s always the same with you,” he snaps, and I’m too tired to argue back. Normally I would, and we’d have one of our majestic fights and we’d both say that we’re just trying to help but the other one is too stupid to see
that. But now, I’m just too tired. He seems to sense it. “Seventy-four days,” he whispers.

I break into a smile, a hand on his hip. “Has someone been counting?”

“I haven’t seen you in seventy-four days,” he repeats, and then he just shakes his head. We can do a week. That’s alright. We need that, sometimes, the space. Two weeks, okay. Three weeks is pushing it. A month we’ve
done in the past, and we both thought that that was roughly the limit beyond which it just wouldn’t work. And now we’ve more than exceeded that. Like we didn’t know that it’d start eating away at us, and that it’d make my
bad tour habits even worse, that it’d make Ryan give the guys he’s working with a very special kind of hell.

“How’s the tour been?” he asks, his nose now nudging mine. “How are the guys? What books have you been reading? What have you been thinking? How was Brazil? It’s different hearing it in person, not on the phone.
God, you’re so beautiful. When did you get this beautiful?” His words all blur together, stream of consciousness rather than conversation. And he doesn’t even let me answer, just kisses me, and I need to be close, closer,
and then he’s got me pressed against the wall and his lips are on my neck, and I’m drowning in it. The kisses are soft and lingering, like he needs to be sure of something.

“Ryan,” I say, trying to reconnect with reality. And he hums and kisses me and breathes me in. “Ryan. I’ve got a room in the hotel across the street.”

He pulls back and looks dumbfounded for a few seconds. Then he laughs. “God, I knew there was a reason I love you.”

And I feel at a loss because of his words, and so I just brush some of his hair behind his ear and love him in return.

After an exit that is as non-conspicuous as we can manage it, we get to the hotel room and lock the door. We draw the curtains and kick off our shoes. I slide his shirt off, kiss his shoulders. Reclaim territory. And then
we’re naked on the bed, and I feel like I’m emerging from underwater. Like the world makes sense again, like I suddenly rediscover my appetite, like my body suddenly knows that it’s allowed to rest. I yawn against his
cheek, and Ryan’s warm, strong limbs wrapping around me.

Skin to skin, even breaths. Fingers tracing warmth. Not going further than that. Not needing to.

And so we sleep for the few hours that we have. We sleep the afternoon away, him holding me, me holding him, and it gets me through the twenty days that we still had left.

It makes me a better man.

Los Angeles, 1984

Jon’s told me not to mention it, but it’s hard. There’s an empty space around the table where Ryan should be, and his absence is painfully obvious to me. His wry humour, his sharp intellect. It leaves the conversation
lacking, gives more room for those less witty to speak up.

Brendon has been asking about my new book, although I doubt he’s truly interested. I tell him anyway, because I’m excited and I want to talk about it. And maybe normally Brendon would be interested, but his smile is
wearing thin tonight. Ryan isn’t here.

I know about the fight. I don’t know the specifics of it, of course, because I wasn’t a fly on the wall. I’ve made a decision not to crash at Ryan and Brendon’s anymore after that time they forgot I had stayed over and went
straight onto loud morning sex. They didn’t even bother being embarrassed, Ryan just said that I could have taken the hint and fucking leave. But I had promised them pancakes.

They liked the pancakes.

That was a few years back.

The bar is busy as always, but Ryan’s not here, he’s not in town, he’s in Bismarck. Apparently. And I know a hell of a lot about that man going off to the wilderness by himself, and what it means, and what he does to
himself out there. And Brendon’s here, looking like he’s in pain, and he’s drinking too much.

Jon said not to mention it. To Brendon.

So I mention it Spencer at the bar, because if someone knows, it must be Spencer. “Yeah, Ryan went up there last week.”

“When’s he coming back?”

Spencer chews on his bottom lip awkwardly. “Don’t think he said.”

“Have you heard from him?”

Spencer shakes his head. “Everyone needs to be alone sometimes.”

Ryan doesn’t. Not from Brendon.

“They had a fight,” I say matter-of-factly, trying to coax it out of Spencer. Spencer just nods. Everyone fights. Ryan and Brendon fight. Jon and Cassie fight. Vicky and Gabe, they especially fight, and their engagement has
changed that none.

“It’s their business,” Spencer says firmly, like it’s normal for Ryan to just take off on his own. He doesn’t just do that.

“Brendon looks like he’s barely holding it together.”

“William,” Spencer says, gets his drink and wanders off.

He’s probably right. William in the hospital. Won’t see the end of summer, Ryan said, before telling me not to tell Brendon that under any circumstances. And I haven’t. Brendon needs to think that William can get better,
but that disease is one-way. There is no cure.

Depressed and moody, I spend some time chatting up girls and dancing and drinking. I feel that sickening burn that I felt on the day that Dad moved out. He didn’t come back. He said that he would, but he didn’t.

I know what the others would say. You’re just being hysterical, Sisky. Don’t overreact, Sisky. It’s none of your business, Sisky.

But Ryan’s never pulled a stunt like this on Brendon before.

When I get back to the table, Brendon’s slowly inhaling a joint. He’s got one of his knees raised as he leans back into the couch, seemingly enjoying the dark corner where he’s settled. The others are chatting away, and he
stares ahead of himself like he’s not even here. I go sit next to him, asking him to move to the middle so that I can squeeze myself between him and the armrest. “How’s it going?” I ask, and he nods distractedly and says
nothing. I try to get a conversation going, but it’s in vain, and Jon is glaring at me, so I leave Brendon be and immerse myself in the topic of the hour.

People come by and say hi, a lot of hands being shaken, a lot of hugs. People I know, people I vaguely know. Friends and acquaintances. And it’s five in the morning, but some of us seem to be in no hurry home, Brendon
amongst us.

But then the perpetual night turns into morning, and it’s a pleasant morning, the kind where I can see the sun again. Because I lift my eyes from the melting ice cubes in my drink when Ryan’s voice says, “Morning,
everyone.”

And he’s here, and not in Bismarck, and he looks like he did last week, and he looks perfectly normal and just, well, usual. But Brendon’s gone stiff beside me, eyes on Ryan as the guys pat his back and welcome him like
he’s never been gone. And on Brendon’s other side, Mike gets up, automatically giving up his seat, and Ryan rounds the table and sits by Brendon as automatically. And Brendon’s still looking stunned and wide-eyed.

Cassie is talking to Spencer now. I try to focus on their words, try to catch the thread of their conversation. Join everyone in pretending that we know nothing.

But instead my ears pick out Brendon’s voice: “When did you get back?”

“A few hours ago. You weren’t home.”

“No.”

Brendon sounds like he’s trying hard to sober up. He sounds apologetic. Ryan’s leaning into him. I think Ryan says, “I love you,” but I’m not sure, and they’re acting like there’s no one else in the room.

In any case, Brendon relaxes. They exchange hushed words. They both look like Regret itself dressed them this morning. Brendon nods too much and presses his fingers to Ryan’s cheek, his neck, his knee, and everyone
ignores it because they know that it’s that cocoon that the two of them can create out of nowhere, where you’re ultimately left feeling like an outsider observing something you can’t quite understand.  

They stand up and don’t even bid goodbye. I don’t think they remember that we exist. Ryan keeps a hand on the small of Brendon’s back as they leave, which is fine and not suspicious because Brendon can’t walk quite
straight so it only looks like friendly guidance. Brendon leans into Ryan, however. Ryan seems intent on taking them home.

It’s only after they’re out of sight that Jon glances at Spencer, and Spencer glances at me, and I wonder if we all wonder if that was a close call for those two, whatever it was.

But Ryan just takes a long time to apologise sometimes. Brendon too.

I doubt we’ll see those two for a while. They don’t really need others, I’ve come to find. The rest of us, we’re just scenery.

Los Angeles, 2012

“I don’t know how I feel about this,” he says, fidgeting in his suit. The cameras occasionally point towards us, and he ducks his head and pretends to be invisible. Like that works.

“It’ll be fine,” I murmur, leaning towards him to speak. We don’t want the entire ballroom to hear. “I’m gonna do the talking, remember?”

He knows this and takes in deep breaths. An actress or another is on stage, presenting an award to a man who plays a gay kid in a TV show I think I might’ve heard of. The atmosphere is cheerful and, well, gay, and my
eyes dart to the GLAAD sign on the microphone centre stage. We’re sitting front row. I feel humbled to be front row.

Ryan mutters, “Why did they make us sit front row? What have we got to do with any of these people?”

He sounds mildly paranoid, and I let him vent. He hates these things.

One of the techs now comes over to us, crouching to make sure he’s not caught on camera. He’s a kid, barely thirty, with hipster glasses and a beard. “Mr. Ross, Mr. Roscoe,” he says quietly. “You’re about to go on after
this.”

“Okay,” I nod, unfazed. I’m ready. Ryan’s not. He thought walking along the red carpet was daunting enough.

“Could you hold hands?” the kid now asks, perfectly sincere. “It’d be great if you held hands.” He then presses his ear piece and frowns in concentration. “Okay, I’ll tell them.” He glances at us. “One minute.” He rather
eloquently crouches away.

I look at Ryan over my glasses and try to smile calmly. He forces a fake smile back, making the wrinkles in the corners of his eyes more pronounced – the sign of a life spent smiling. His hair’s got a tinge of grey to it,
though he absolutely denies it. But it looks good. He will always look good.

A new presenter now comes on stage, another kid, and he starts babbling about how ‘the next award is given to an openly gay member of the entertainment or media community for –’, and I recognise the kid as that
newcomer singer who has been on MTV a lot. Ryan doesn’t recognise him at all, however, because he simply doesn’t care to know.

I look down at Ryan’s hand that is squeezing the armrest, unwilling to move. He notices my gaze and he mutters, “My hands are sweaty.”

I can’t help but be amused. “Baby, you’ve sung in front of thousands and you’ve accepted Grammies and given speeches to millions. All you gotta do is stand there.”

“Singing I can do, saying a quick thanks I can do. But this is not about the music. That’s what freaks me out, that –”

“– Brendon Roscoe and Ryan Ross!”

‘And go!’ the tech from earlier mouths, now behind the camera guy who has snuck up on us and is broadcasting our faces to thousands, no, millions, and this will end up on YouTube and those other internet websites –
Ryan kept ranting about it earlier when we got in our suits back home. A litany of “When I was young, we had no such ridiculous things, when I was young –”

I stand up and smile winningly, adjusting my suit some. Ryan follows and looks pained and awkward. The room is full of applause.

I don’t reach for his hand.

I walk first, and he follows. It works well for all red carpet events, and so it’s a successful and well-established technique by now.

And then we take the steps up and are on stage, and from the corner of my eye I see that the entire theatre is giving us a standing ovation, Hollywood glamour and actresses and musicians and whoever they are in glittery
dresses and tailored suits. For a second I feel speechless and overwhelmed, and then I just focus on the mission at hand.

The award is a small glass slab on a black pedestal. The presenter hands it over to me, smiling widely and looking awed, and I give the kid a one-armed hug like we’re friends when we’ve never met, but hey, I’m sure we’d
like each other anyway. The man then shakes Ryan’s hand, which is a good call on his part. Ryan’s not the hugging strangers type.

I turn to the microphone. “Thank you.” I need to wait for the audience to quiet down, but they keep cheering. “Thank you,” I say again and smile somewhat embarrassedly. Eventually, I realise that I just need to start
speaking or they’ll never stop. “This is without a doubt the most unique award Ryan or I have ever accepted.” The audience silences, they sit back down. I glance at the award. “It’s weird to see both of our names on this,
and even more so because this one isn’t for music or a song we wrote. This one is about us.” My eyes find the carving of Brendon Roscoe and Ryan Ross on the glass, and my eyes lock with Ryan’s. He’s looking at me
like at that moment I’m the only person in the room. I feel breathless for a second.

Then I turn back to the crowd and concentrate.

“When I was growing up, we didn’t have things like GLAAD. No one talked about gay rights. No one talked about being gay. No one thought it worth celebrating. I ran away from home when I was fifteen after my family
disowned me for being a homosexual.” I silence momentarily, and so does the entire room, a sudden gloom emerging. I’m not telling them anything that some journalist didn’t already dig up in the eighties, apart from the
real reason I ran away which wasn’t unearthed until a few years back. “But that was the sixties. In Utah. Not the easiest place to be gay, trust me,” I say with a smirk, and I earn a chuckle from the audience, managing to lift
everyone’s spirits again. “And I cannot begin to tell you how much the world has changed during my lifetime. Now gay couples can get married in certain places. Gay couples can adopt – again, in certain places. None of
that used to exist. Just thirty, twenty years ago such things were unheard of. So this world bears little recognition to the one I knew when I was a young gay man. And that change is thanks to you. All the hard work people
like you have done. Not me, not Ryan. Not us. Because I met the love of my life when I was twenty-three but I kept it hidden until I was nearly fifty.” I glance at Ryan, and he tries to smile back, but he looks like he’s finding
it hard to swallow. I address the room again. “We don’t deserve this award. We kept our relationship a secret not just years, but decades. Our closest friends knew, but the world did not. And we couldn’t make it public. My
label once told me that straight men would not want to listen to songs written by a gay man.” People in the audience scoff.

I pause, looking at the trophy again. “It’s because of people like you and the work that you do that enabled Ryan and me to stop hiding. It feels stupid to, uh, revealyour relationship to the world when it’s past its twentieth
anniversary. But we finally did. And we got hate mail. We got disowned by loyal fans. Anti-gay groups dug out their old LPs and smashed them. Just a hint: listening to music made by gays doesn’t make you gay. And it
doesn’t make gay music. It’s just that: music. But we also got support, so much of it that we were stunned. We got letters from fans of all ages, people older than us, from teenagers. I personally will always remember a
letter that I received from a fourteen-year-old boy who told me that because of where he lived, he could not be openly gay, but knowing that his favourite musician had survived that same situation gave him hope. He
signed it with, ‘p.s. Your partner’s gorgeous. Well done.’” I grin at this, recalling showing Ryan the letter. The audience is laughing and smiling, and the look I give Ryan is almost too intimate to be given in front of everyone.
“And we got mail from middle aged straight men who said that hey, that love song you wrote twenty years ago finally makes sense! And it’s still a damn good song and it doesn’t make a damn difference whether you wrote
it about a guy or a girl.
Ryan and I have not been brave. We have not set a good example because we hid our love away. But your courage made us brave. Your work enabled us to be honest at last. And for my part, I hope that we now can set a
good example and that we truly will be able to deserve this award one day. Because let me tell you, being a gay kid in Utah still cannot be easy. But we’re working on it. Thank you.”

I lift the award and smile, and again the applause rings loudly and again people are standing up, and I don’t quite know what to make of it.

The man who presented the award is clapping enthusiastically, beaming, and I turn to Ryan, and in his eyes I see approval and I feel relieved. But his eyes move to the microphone, and then he’s stepped up to it.

It’s amazing how the entire room shuts up instantly. Instantly. I just look at him in surprise.

“I wasn’t going to say anything,” Ryan says, which is true. He seems to ignore the cameras and speaks to the people instead. “This entire thing has made me uncomfortable from the start, and we agreed to let Brendon talk
because I’m the socially awkward one and he’s the charming one.” Someone chuckles awkwardly, unsure whether or not he’s trying to be funny. He’s just being honest and blunt like he always is. “Before we came on, we
were told to hold hands. Hold hands, I thought. How strange to not only receive permission but a demand. I’ve been,” Ryan starts, pausing and glancing at me, “wishing I could hold his hand since 1974.” I forget myself for
a second, then, and just look at him. “When we met, I had no idea that we as a couple would one day be rewarded for helping to eliminate homophobia. At the time, we were struggling to just make it through the day. And
that’s why I feel uncomfortable standing here. Not because of the flashing lights or the righteous, just cause or any of you people, but because when I found something that important to me, when I found him – I fought for
decades trying to protect us from a world that didn’t understand. And now we’re here.” He laughs disbelievingly, his hand briefly touching his forehead. “Times change, like my partner said. This world has changed. And
Brendon’s always been the brave one. But because he’s been by my side, I’ve stopped being scared.” He swallows hard and then looks up into the room. “We’ve got decades of hiding to make up for, so we’ll be busy doing
what we can to help. And Brendon is worthy of the recognition he’s received tonight. I am not. But I’m also working on it.”

He steps back from the microphone, and now it’s his turn to look at me for approval. I break into a smile, still holding the award, and Ryan looks at ease at last. He grins at me as people cheer once more, the entire room
standing up. He’s got the world eating out of the palm of his hand. He always has.

The moments still happen. The moments when it just hits me, like when he’s buttering a slice of toast, or we’ve fought and the bed is cold and empty, or he’s on tour and I find a shirt that still smells of him, or when he
makes me laugh without even trying.

That moment when I’m his all over again.

I reach out my hand, and he takes it.

EXTRA THROAM FICLETS BY ANNA, taken from her old tumblr account

Sometimes I see things in my head, and they won’t go away until I put it in writing. So there you go.

**

The alarm rang quarter to five, noise dissecting a restless sleep and violently pulling me out of it. Confusion hit me first, recollection second. The nausea third.

Beside me, he stirred. I reached over him to the nightstand and switched the alarm off with a forceful slam, angry with it. The loss was already penetrating my cells until the loss and I became one. It was warm under the
covers. He was lying on his back with tousled hair and smooth bed-warm skin. I knew I had to get out of bed.

“Hey,” he croaked, or more like sighed. I could just make him out in the dark. He cuddled into the sheets more.

Briefly, I let my nose brush the side of his face. Breathed him in.

The lights in the bathroom blinded me when I stumbled in. I was in a hurry to get out of our home. Now that it was morning, now that it was the day itself, I just needed to hit the road. I knew from past experience that the
sickening burn eased up once I had actually left. My bags were downstairs, I had a change of clothes waiting in the bathroom next to a satchel that had a few of my essentials. I brushed my teeth without looking into the
mirror. Got dressed quickly, I stank of sex but didn’t shower.

There was a countdown timer in my head, with days and hours and minutes and seconds. It was flashing full digits, saying that it was ready to start.

Back in the dark bedroom, it was still dark and homely. It wasn’t my fault, I reminded myself. This was the life we had chosen. We both knew that. I knew he hadn’t fallen back asleep. I sat on the edge of the bed, and he
looked up at me, still under the covers. My eyes flicked to the clock, bang on five now. The car would be out front, ready to take me away.

We hadn’t talked about it. Of course we hadn’t. We’d done our utmost to ignore it.

“Guess I’ll see you later, huh?” he said quietly, and I nodded.

“Sure man.”

I brushed hair from his forehead and held back a sigh. I needed to get up and go. It’d be better after that. It always felt better after that, but this part was the worst.

I leaned down and kissed him. It was a hard kiss, and he tasted of sleep and us. As I began to pull back, his hand moved to the back of my head and he pulled me back in. Now we tasted of desperation. We broke apart,
and he pressed his forehead against mine.
My throat closed in on itself. “I fucking love you,” I managed. I hadn’t meant to say it. I hadn’t wanted to.

“Just go.”

“Ryan.”

“Fuck off already,” he hissed and let go, slumping back on the bed, body language defeated.

I stood up, satchel hanging off my shoulder.

My steps echoed in the vestibule, against the hard, unforgiving marble. What was three months in the grand scheme of things, anyway? Nothing. I’d be on tour, I’d be too busy to constantly think of that countdown timer
that had now started in my head, big fat red digits decreasing one by one. Until I got back here again. I didn’t want us to be one of those co-dependent couples. There was more to this world than my relationship. I had
friends, I had this band, I had this tour, I would have a good time.

The car was waiting outside the gate of our house, the driver immediately rushing forwards to help me with my two suitcases. The leather of the backseat was smooth and cold, and I breathed in the dark. I thought of him
in our bed, staring at the ceiling. The house perfectly quiet.

I wiped the corner of my eye. Resisted the urge to punch the back of the seat ahead of me.

The car started heading to the airport. I lit a cigarette. It slowly became easier to breathe.

**

Context: last day of tour in Barcelona, Sisky and Ryan are out on an existential walk (park, Roman ruins, ring any bells?) during which Brendon and Spencer briefly chat on the bus.

“Hey.”

I open my eyes and see Spencer staring at me quizzically. I’m in the bus lounge, on the couch. My notebook’s wresting on my belly, and I rise to sit when I see balled up pages thrown all over. From last night, the rough
sketches - If anyone picks them up, tries reading one.

“Uh, hey,” I manage, sitting up quickly and frantically gathering the discarded sketches from the floor, looking like a hoarder. Spencer picks one up and hands it over.

“Here.”

“Um, thanks. Just some - lyric sketches, just,” I explain, wondering what time it is, how long I’ve slept for. I look towards the bunk. “Ryan still asleep?”

For once, he wasn’t my first thought when I woke up - simply the second. I had something written down, I managed to find the words, I think.

“He’s not in his bunk. Probably gone for a walk,” Spencer says, and I hate that, Ryan going for walks, him being away from me, I hate him leaving me, and suddenly it hurts all over again. Sleep, what restless sleep.

“Oh. Right,” I manage. Spencer’s observing me, so I look away. He knows, just like everyone else does: Ryan and I slept together, and now - now Ryan doesn’t want me. He doesn’t.

“You alright?” Spencer asks, and I look up at him, his blue eyes seem to be reading me carefully. I’d say I’m alright but he’d know it to be a lie.

I’m not.
Fuck, I am so far from alright.

So I just shake my head. Today’s the last day. One more show and then we’ll pack up so that Jürgen can drive us to Madrid for our morning flight to London, then straight to Chicago from there. And Ryan’s Ryan, he will
avoid me through all of it, and he won’t even say goodbye when we get to O’Hare, he’ll just disappear into the crowd no matter how hard I try to reach him, and - and then he’ll be gone again, and there will just be this
massive space where he should be, and then I’ll go home, alone, and I’ll stand there, alone, and it’s not about me being alone, no, it’s about me not being with him.

And him being on a plane taking him away from me again.

I have to stop that but I don’t know how.

Spencer’s taken a seat opposite me. He’s Ryan’s best friend. They were together yesterday morning, after Ryan decided not to stay in my bed. Spencer hasn’t said anything of it, and why would he? We’ve been friendly
enough but we’re not friends. We know whose side he is on.

Spencer says, “He really, really cares about you,”

“Well he’s got a funny way of showing it,” I say lifelessly. I’ve apologised. Crawled. Begged. And he won’t budge.

THROAM!AU: He Acts Like We Never

Have Met (I Don't Believe You) 1/2
Title: He Acts Like We Never Have Met (I Don’t Believe You)

Author:  arctic_grey
Rating:  NC-17
Pairing:  THROAM!Ryan/THROAM!Brendon
POV: 1st, Brendon’s

Beta:  gingerrstar, thank you for doing this on such short notice! xxx

Summary: This is what we faggots do: sit in the cars of strangers after sunset, watching them pay for a motel room at the reception.

Disclaimer: The following story is an AU timetravel fic based on my other story, The Heart Rate of a Mouse. This timetravel!fic is in no way connected to the real plot of THROAM, which is to say that THROAM!Ryan never
goes back in time and that this is fanfic of my fanfic. When real THROAM continues with Vol.2 – III, please bear in mind that what you’re about to read never happened or happens. Ryan and Brendon never meet until
1974, and Brendon still lost his virginity to Norman the Creepy Married Guy. If you think you might get confused, then I suggest refraining from reading this until, perhaps, THROAM in its entirety is done. Lastly, the title of
the fic is a Bob Dylan pun because I’m lame like that. 

Warnings:  father issues, religious issues, having sex with a minor, unexplained time-travel, THROAM spoilers, references and allusions. But! This can be read as an “older-timetravelling!Ryan sleeps with a younger!
Brendon” fic even without the THROAM context – there will just be things you won’t get, but the overall gist is pretty obvious.

Place in THROAM timeline (SPOILERS):  This AU takes place in the early spring of 1967, roughly a month before Brendon’s sixteenth birthday. He ran away from home in late summer 1966. After having lived in Flagstaff,
working at a barber shop, rumours started going around and he thought it best to run for it. He’s back on the road for now, but will settle down in Omaha later on in 1967. He finally moves to San Francisco in 1972, after
years of drifting and of enduring homophobia, verbal abuse and occasional physical abuse, but the hardships will eventually turn him into a strong, independent individual – who is also embittered for life. For imaginary
timetravelling!Ryan, this takes place after Vol.2 – II, so after he and Brendon have ended their affair, Brendon going back to Shane, leaving Ryan in a heartbroken mess.

Author Notes:  HAPPY BIRTHDAY, THROAM! <3 A year ago today I posted Vol.1 – I. Man, has it been a year? Wow. Thanks to all of you who have stuck around all this time! I know the waiting is annoying, that the
breaks feel too long for you, but I hope that this AU will help you wait for Vol.2 – III! I am working on it, it’s just proving hard, and I simply want it to be the quality that you deserve. So thank you for all your support and
comments and feedback – they mean a lot to me and your feedback in particular does mould the story as I go along, as your observations on characters sometimes make me see sides of them I hadn’t even considered!
Again, thank you so much. <3

THROAM, baby, you’re like a leech and you take up way too much of my free time, but I love you. We’ve been together for a year and a half now, and I had no idea that you’d be so bloody long, but I’ve never felt this way
about a fic before and, baby, I can only hope that you feel the same way. Happy anniversary, doll. xxx 

Okay, how about some fic, eh?

When Brendon hands the cigarette back, pressing into my side, all warm and post-coital, he adds, “I cried the first time. Well, not during but after. It hurt like a bitch.”

“I’m not gonna fucking cry,” I note disbelievingly. 

“I’d rather you didn’t,” he jokes, causing me to roll my eyes. His expression turns more serious. “I was fifteen myself. Didn’t know the guy. He’d given me a ride, and it just happened. He was in his mid-thirties, I think.
Married. He got us a gritty motel room. Damn squeaky bed,” he lists, eyes slightly glassy as he thinks back to it. “He didn’t last long, thankfully.” He doesn’t look at me, like maybe he’s embarrassed. Like I’d judge him at
this point.

- Vol.1 – II: Chapter 8

-----

He Acts Like We Never Have Met (I Don’t Believe You)

If I’m a faggot, I might as well act like one.

If I’m a faggot... I might as well act like one.

And I am. I am. And this is what happens. This is what we do.

We sit in the cars of strangers after sunset, watching them pay for a motel room at the reception. I clutch my bag tighter to my chest. Stare at the rear-view mirror to see him now walking along the long row of motel doors.
“Wait here,” he said and, “Come when I tell you.” He stops outside door twenty-four. He’s not bad looking – average height, average weight. Glasses and a moustache. A friendly face. He looks towards the car. Lifts his
hand. Beckons with one finger.

We’ve been driving for two hours. Talking. Norman seems nice. He likes me a lot. He must like me. He’ll take me home after this. He’ll take care of me.

Okay.

I get out of the car with a deep breath. The chill of the night hits me instantly. I wish I still had that thick cardigan that Mother made for Christmas. Not this past Christmas, but the one before that. When I was still there.

The gravel crunches under my feet and I hang my head, feeling otherworldly as I walk over swiftly. Before someone sees.

“How about we go warm up, eh?” Norman says, an eager tone to his words. I flash him what is hopefully a confident smile. My heart keeps pounding wildly.

“I must say,” a sudden voice comes from the shadows, causing me to jump. A tall, thin man I’ve never seen before is leaning against one of the cars in the motel parking lot, having been invisible to us both until now. He
says, “I don’t really see the family resemblance.”

Norman’s hand lowers from the motel room door handle. He looks confused. “Excuse me?”

The new arrival, who is still staring at us, is wearing weird attire: a pair of brown pants with flared cuffs, maroon shoes with inch thick soles, it looks like, and his jacket and vest match the pants, but the dress shirt’s buttons
are undone all the way to the V of the vest, revealing a stripe of pale skin like he’s not cold at all. The moonlight catches something at his neck, maybe a chain of sorts. He must be from a big city like St. George or Ogden
because no way would anyone wear something like that where I’m from. Norman seems to be taking in the man’s odd choice of clothing as well, and we stare at the stranger for a second. I feel like I’ve been caught red-
handed.

The stranger stands up straight. He looks angry. Indignant. Like he knows. Panic raises its ugly head inside me, a guilty boom and a string of words like ‘filthy’ and ‘abomination’ and ‘disgusting’ and ‘unnatural’, but I wasn’t
going to – I swear that I. And if he knows that about me, then he must think he’s got the right to beat me to a pulp.

“Well,” he says, “it’s just that it’s getting rather late. Saw you guys pull in from the interstate. Now, I see that ring on your finger, so you must be a married man, and since, by the looks of it, you’re sharing a motel room, I
just assumed that you two were related. But, like I said.” The man smiles in a way that has no amusement in it. “I can’t see the resemblance. So I’m left wondering.”

Norman’s pale as he barks, “Piss off and mind your own business.” He pushes the glasses up his nose nervously.

I flinch and swallow hard. He was sweet in the car. He kept smiling at me. Then a hand on my knee. Travelling up my thigh. Now he’s angry, and I don’t know if I like it. If it’s sensible to go into a room with a man with a
temper this short.

“No. You piss off,” the guy says.

Norman’s hand is hovering towards the door handle again, then away, like he’s not sure, and I try to make myself invisible. I wasn’t doing anything. I swear. I swear, I swear, I swear to  God. Just let me leave. I’ll leave.
Won’t make a sound.

“I’m not telling you again,” the stranger snaps, and it’s actual anger in his tone now, and maybe Norman and this guy know each other from somewhere, maybe there’s this whole thing I don’t know that I have now gotten
into, and god, Brendon, stupid, stupid Brendon, you were bound to run out of luck, fall into the wrong hands –

I hold my breath, shiver, try to remain calm.

Norman’s hand drops to his side. He looks at me with a hint of remorse, that penetrating gaze that got me flustered when he pulled to the side of the road with a “Hey kid, where you going?” He swears under his breath,
and looks humiliated, scared and angry as he quickly heads back to his car, ducking his head.

The man watches Norman go – clearly pleased.

I clutch my backpack tighter, still letting it dangle from one curled fist. I take careful steps away from the new man. “Stop,” he says, not even looking my way. I halt. Panic. He looks at me, eyes dropping to my side. “That all
you’ve got? No other bags in his car?”

I shake my head, lips pursed together. The engine of Norman’s car coughs and wheezes and starts. I flinch. He speeds out of the motel like he’s on fire. I shift my weight from one leg to the other. Plan an escape route.

God, I need to get out of here. God. God. God, are you listening?

The man sighs. “That’s all you’ve got,” he says, more to himself than me. He’s got brown hair that’s a bit longer than is proper, locks curling around his ears, and no one would have that haircut where I come from. Not back
home, and no one had that kind of hair in Flagstaff either. I could recommend him a decent barber shop back there. He’s twenty-something. Older.

Handsome.

The back of my neck trickles with embarrassed heat and my stomach drops in shame. He could pull out a gun and kill me, and this is what I pay attention to: his looks.

“I’m Ryan,” he says, in this final tone like that’s meant to mean something. Okay. Ryan. Ryan, Ryan, Ryan. That doesn’t mean anything.

“Luke.”

“Luke.” His lips twist into a wicked smile. “A good, biblical name.”

...Biblical?

“Look, I gotta go,” I mumble, scared shitless and needing to get away from him. Before he starts asking questions about Norman and who and what, because then he’ll find out, and I can’t risk that. I think I might have just
escaped one close call, and I want to hide somewhere and feel safe, wrapped up in solitude, calm down, not wonder where my dismembered body might have been found. Because that can happen, you know. The world’s
full of sinners, Father always said. Sinners like Norman – a married man. Sinners like – like me.

If I’m a faggot, then I should act like it. I was going to go through with it. Show that I’m not all talk. Do what  we do. Norman seemed to know.

God, I bring shame unto my family.

Ryan keeps staring at me intently, and I flash an awkward smile at him and hurriedly back away – to nowhere, sleep outside if need be, it’s spring, at least, it’s getting warmer, it’s not that bad.

“Wait,” he says. Not stop, but wait. Softly. So I do. “When was the last time you ate?”

I fidget. “What?”

He stuffs his bony hands into his jacket pockets. Tall and lean. I like that in men. I think I do, anyway. “I asked when the last time you ate was. And no candy or crackers, I mean a proper, decent meal. And don’t lie to me.”

Humiliation makes my cheeks flare up – I feel the heat on them. Last week. It was last week.

“Come on,” he says without waiting for me to reply. He nods to a seemingly random direction, but something – something in his tone. Or the way he looks at me. Like he would never harm me. “Let’s get something to eat.”

“But why would you want to buy me dinner?” I ask sceptically, not wanting to believe I’ve met someone who’s just nice. Maybe he wants to lure me to a dark alleyway where his gang is, and then they’ll show me.

“Because you look like you need it,” he says simply, but I don’t move. “Come on. Humour me. Trust me.”

Trust him? I trusted Norman and can already see that I shouldn’t have. And this Ryan, appearing out of nowhere with his weird clothes and knowing eyes – trusthim? When he looks at me – fondly. And speaks softly. No,
it’s a trap.

I take further steps back. Need to get out of here. Run for it.

One of the motel room doors behind me opens suddenly. I swirl around, the sound giving me a fright. A young guy walks out in a smart suit with neatly cut black hair and handsome features, lifting a hand our way and
saying a cordial “Good evening.” From the corner of my eye, I see Ryan nod in response. The guy gets out car keys and approaches a blue Buick Riviera, and maybe he could give me a lift, get me out of here. I keep
backing away from Ryan, my eyes flying between him and the well-dressed guy now getting into a car.

“We’ve got one thing in common,” Ryan then says. My eyes keep darting to the guy and his car.

“What’s that?”

“Well,” he smiles crookedly, “we both think that guy is kind of hot.” He nods towards the car that’s now backing out from the parking slot.

I stop. “What?”

Did he just call another man...?

Ryan looks surprised. “Didn’t you check out his ass? I know I did.”

I– don’t know what to say. I didn’t know you could say something like that. In public. Or in private. At all.

But he just did. I stare at him, and he smirks. Pleased.

***

I feel a lot younger than a month away from sixteen, sitting in the mostly hidden corner booth of the bar. The place stinks of beer and cigarettes and is full of drunken truck drivers and two tired looking waitresses, and Ryan
sits across from me and smokes. We got stared at when we came in: his clothes. He didn’t seem at all self-conscious, though. That was impressive. I am impressed. He’s got magical powers, this Ryan: first getting me into
the bar, the barkeep grudgingly saying that he supposed it was alright as long as I didn’t drink, and, secondly, Ryan managed to get whatever leftover food the closed kitchen had.

My plate is a mismatched collection of mashed potatoes, a burger, French fries, and peas; and on the second plate I’ve got a slice of apple pie and a brownie. A brownie. I want to go for it first, but then no. No dessert
before you’ve eaten your food, and so I sneak glances at the brownie and start eating fast, before the goddamned food somehow disappears from in front of me.

‘Goddamned’. I just swore. I’ve started swearing in general. It’s caught on in the past... How long has it been now? I used to count the days. Then weeks. Now months.

I feel tense in the presence of Ryan. It’s that weird feeling of him knowing something I don’t. But he clearly knows a lot. He clearly... God.

I didn’t think I’d meet one.

He’s staring. I know this because I’m staring too, just a bit more subtly.

I say, “You’re staring,” and take a huge gulp from my Coke bottle and then focus on the food again. Or try to focus. But can’t.

He flinches, like he was utterly unaware of what he was doing. “Sorry,” he laughs. He’s got a nice laugh. He’s got nice eyes. “You just look so damn young.”

I arch an eyebrow. “Well, you look like you’re thirty.”

“Twenty-six.”
“Same difference.”

“Snarky. Why am I not surprised?” He smiles good-naturedly, but the joke’s lost on me. He keeps acting like we’re not strangers, like he feels perfectly at ease in my company. Like we share something. He did say that.
That him and I share something. Are alike. Brothers. Comrades. He insinuated it.

“Um,” I begin, nervous and excited and petrified. “At the parking lot, you said that- you. You know.”

He quirks an eyebrow, flicks the cigarette. Specks of ash drift down onto the table. “That I what?”

I feel embarrassed and my cheeks radiate heat. “Um... you know.”

“Like having sex with men?” he offers. I tense up and instantly gaze around the bar to see who heard him and if they’re getting their pitchforks out. But no one’s reacting at all, no one’s looking our way in disgust or horror. I
glance at him anxiously. How can he just say things like that?

My hands sweat as I try to appear unaffected. “So you’re a...?” I drift off again. Is he really?

“Sometimes,” he shrugs. Like that’s no big deal to him. Oh wow. Wow. “Often, really.”

I rush out, “Do you know any others?”

He laughs and casts me an amused look. “We’re hardly a dying breed.” A bit of degrading arrogance, like I should know that. I duck my head and try to hide my excitement. He must think I’m an idiot. “Hey.” His voice is soft
and beckoning, and I glance up at him. “There are hundreds, thousands of guys like you, you know. Like us.”

Wow. Wow, that’s incredible. If it’s true. Wow.

“I just haven’t met very many,” I explain, occupying myself with the food. Ryan’s the first one who has said it out loud of the men I’ve met. Norman, well – he said as he pulled over that I should know that he’s a normal guy.
That he’s normal. That he doesn’t usually, but we’ll have a good time, won’t we? And then Sal in Flagstaff. He never said it either, we only kissed on his bed, and then we helped each other, hands shoved down each
other’s pants. He never said it, and he told me to piss off the next time he saw me, told me I was vile. Ryan is different. He’s saying that he’s like me. “So what do you do?” I ask curiously. He just looks bemused, and I say,
“I mean, do you have a normal life?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Because. You know...” I’m not going to say it. I shift in my seat, trying not to show that I don’t know anything, and he knows everything, and I’m intrigued. “Do you have a boyfriend?”

“No.”

“Oh.” Maybe we don’t get to have boyfriends.

“But some do. They just stay hidden, that’s all. You don’t even know they’re there.”

I frown. “Then how do you ever find anyone?”

He sucks in smoke, his cheeks hollowing. He looks really good as he does it. “I found you. Didn’t I?”

He did. Somehow. By magic. I flash an uncertain smile at him.

He points at my food. “Eat up. You’re too pale.”

I’m torn between an actual, live gay man in front of me and proper, warm food, but then the food wins. I flex my fingers around my fork, somewhat clumsily scooping up mashed potatoes. Ryan’s eyes narrow. “Your hand
okay?”

“Yeah. It’s fine.”

“You’re fumbling a bit there.”

“It’s fine,” I repeat. Don’t ask. He doesn’t get to ask. No one does. It’s still a bit weak, that’s all. It’s well enough for me to have worked in a barber shop, too, snipping at hairs with scissors, but sometimes my arm just gets
tired. That’s all. It’s just a bit tired after a long day.

My hand trembles suddenly, and I drop the fork with a clinging sound. Ryan stares but says nothing. I start picking French fries with my good hand instead. Cover up my tracks. Ryan’s cigarette is forgotten between two
long digits. “What?” I demand because his staring is getting unnerving again.

“Nothing.” He drops his gaze. “Never mind.” He sighs.

He told the barkeep that I was his little brother. I think our resemblance is as identical as mine and Norman’s was, but no one at the bar seemed like they wanted to get into it, his clothes and our relations. Hope no one’s
called the police. Hope no one’s figured me out. And if the law enforcement is on its way, I wonder if I could get a milkshake before they get here. I wonder if this place even does milkshakes. They probably don’t. It’d be
nice, though. A milkshake. I haven’t had one in months.

“So are you being nice to me because we’re alike?” I ask, helping myself to the burger. He shakes his head, and I try not to be disappointed. “Is it a good Samaritan thing, then?”

“It’s not about pity,” he says, sounding distracted and straightening his vest. He still has the top buttons of the dress shirt undone. His skin is pale and smooth. Soft looking. I swallow hard.

“The, uh. The good Samaritan wasn’t about pity. Pity isn’t very Christian.” I think it through, wonder what my family would say on the subject. “It’d suggest judging. God alone can judge us.” I feel out my hand by flexing my
fingers. Grab the fork again. God alone can judge us. Only God the Father. Only Father.

“Then it must be about love,” he says. “The good Samaritan.”

I stare at him suspiciously. “Are you one of those hippies? I’ve heard about you. I’ve heard that... some people like us are hippies too. Are you one of those? It’d explain your necklace.”

This time he smiles wide, sucking on the end of his cigarette. He even laughs, the sound rumbling deep from his chest, making the hairs at the back of my neck prick up. “It’s not a necklace. It’s a chain. Call me crazy, but I
thought you’d like it. That it looks like something you might even buy.”

I scoff. “Hardly.”

A necklace? I’m not a girl, even if I’m – Even if I’d take the place of a woman. No son of his, no son of his would degrade himself to the female role. I know I’m not a girl, but I know that the other person would be a man. It
leaves me short of breath. The thought of a man touching me.

I eat the very last pea before I push the emptied plate away and eagerly pull in the dessert. I start with the apple pie – blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are those
who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

If I could find it in myself to forgive him and Him. If I could do that. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. If I could, but I just – don’t know if I can.

I was never much of a son to him or to Him.

I tried, though. I tried.

Apple pie gone – a brownie. Oh sweet Jesus and Mary, Mother of God – a brownie. I fork off a corner. Lift it to my nose and inhale the rich scent of chocolate. Unable to contain myself, I greedily stuff the nugget of sugary
goodness in my mouth. Oh God. Oh God. “This is,” I manage to say, lifting my hand to cover my mouth – ‘Manners, Brendon,’ her stern yet motherly voice says in my head – and then I guzzle the brownie with inhuman
speed. “That was really good,” I say, eyeing the plate and trying to catch every crumb with the fork. I’ve forgotten Ryan’s existence until his hand has reached over the table, his thumb slowly brushing over my lower lip to
wipe away something invisible to me. The pad of his thumb is rough, his touch hot. I tense up and look up at him in surprise. His eyes are focused on my lips. My pulse skyrockets, my skin suddenly heating up.  

His eyes slowly flicker to meet mine, and only then does he seem to catch himself. “Sorry.” His voice has gone husky, and he pulls his hand back.

My mind draws a blank, and then I splutter out something like “yeah, I, you know, yeah.” I sit still, feeling horribly self-conscious.

Not a good Samaritan. Not out of the goodness of his heart. Not out of comradeship.

I sit in the booth quietly, dumbfounded and horrified and flustered.

What do two faggots do when no one’s watching?

“Let’s get you to bed,” Ryan says, and my brain cannot register. He stubs out his cigarette against the table. “You look like you could do with a good night’s rest.”

***

As we walk back to the two motels that are on the sides of the interstate, Ryan asks me where I’m coming from. Flagstaff, Arizona, I say. In all honesty. He asks me where I’m going. I tell him some elaborate lie that I’m
making my way to my grandfather’s house, that he’s ill, and that I lost the bus fare Father gave me, so I decided to hitch-hike. I don’t think Ryan buys a word of it.

The motel isn’t the one Norman chose. There are only two options: a shitty motel and a not-so-shitty one on the other side of the road. Ryan has a room in the not-so-shitty one. He has no belongings in the room, and yet
he seemed to be affronted by my single backpack. There’s a bed. A double bed.

“Shower’s that way,” he tells me, pointing, shrugging off his jacket and tossing it on the bed. I watch the sharp angles of his shoulders. Wonder what his skin feels like there.

I don’t know if he’s giving me a command or a suggestion, but my guts tighten, stomach full of nervous butterflies, and I stagger to the bathroom door. Ryan pulls the faded brown curtains together, and the interstate
disappears along with the rest of the world. Now we can do anything at all, and no one would ever know.

I lock the bathroom door.

I hyperventilate in the shower, the hot water running down my skin. In some sleazy New Mexican motel, near the state line of Colorado with a man I don’t even know. What about that intuitive survival skill now?

But it’s too hard. Trying to keep my head above the water. It’s so much easier to just stop swimming and drown.
Maybe he likes me. Maybe he really likes me. He’s got a normal life despite being a gay man, and he’ll take me home after this.

He won’t. I know he won’t.

But it doesn’t matter. I have to embrace what I’ve become. What I am.

“I don’t have to do this,” I tell myself, my voice weak and questioning. It’s more like a question: I don’t have to do this? He bought me dinner. I owe him now. Norman gave me a lift. I owed him too. I no longer believe that
anyone does anything out of the goodness of their heart. He’s not a good Samaritan. I’m attracted to him. It has to happen sometime. I’m a fag – I need to act like it. Show that I’m not just empty words and unfulfilled
fantasies. I’m a fag, I’m a sodomite, I’m a homosexual, I’m an abomination, and God doesn’t love me, and Father doesn’t love me, and if I never let myself taste the sinful flesh of another man, then what on earth did I
suffer for? What was my passion meant to prove? All of this. This stupid thing, this world, these motels and free rides and weekly jobs and changing names and hiding from the right hand of the law and feeling guilty on
Sundays and wishing I could go back, but I can’t and I don’t want to because I hate so much, I am so full of hate hate hate, and it’s so unfair, God, it’s so unfair, I didn’t mean to, I’m sorry, I’m sorry –

A knock on the door. “You alright in there?”

I flinch. I grab hold of the shower knobs until the showerhead only dribbles a narrow trail on my head. “Yeah, I’m okay.” I rub my face. I am okay.

I don’t have to do this. I can tell him no.

But I think of Ryan and the way he looks at me, his brief touch on my skin, and that’s the thing, Father – I don’t have to do this. But I want to.

I tug my t-shirt down self-consciously, trying to make it meet my last pair of clean briefs. Ryan’s sitting on the edge of the bed. Like he was waiting.

He’s placed an ashtray on the floor next to his now bare feet. His shoes with the thick soles are placed by the locked door. Safety chain buckled in. Only one light is on, and that’s on the nightstand, casting a dim, yellowy
light on us. A round, thin metal box is next to the lamp, and I’m sure it wasn’t there before.

I stay by the bathroom door uncertainly, tugging. Ryan’s taller than me, older, smarter, more experienced, well-travelled, a lot of everything.

He says, “Come here,” his voice smooth and warm. My insides flutter unexpectedly.

His eyes are darker, but there’s warmth in his gaze, or maybe something even hotter than that. I remember his laugh from earlier, the way he smiled. I feel flustered and stupid, and there is no way I can be forming a crush
on someone I don’t even know, some guy who buys me dinner and touches me with more intimacy than should occur between two men – and I am a man, not a boy. Ryan. Ryan.  Ryan. His lips and his eyes and his laugh.
The way he says ‘having sex’ and how it sounds so good coming out of his mouth. Sinful. Alluring.

I walk over slowly, uncertainly, trying to swallow down the excitement and horror. He drops the rest of his cigarette into the ashtray where it keeps emitting smoke into the air like he doesn’t care about that. He sits up
straight, looks at me from head to toe, and reaches out with one hand, placing it on my hip and pulling me closer. He parts his legs, and I stand between them. The only sound is my erratic breathing.

He softly places a hand on my stomach. It’s warm through the fabric, the heel of his hand resting on the slice of exposed skin. My hands drop to my sides, and I stand still like I’m paralysed. He lets out a deep breath, a
sound of contentment. He pulls me even closer.

I stare straight ahead of myself, at the framed painting above the bed headboard, of some mountains and desert, local scenery, nothing special, but all I can feel and think of and breathe and sense is Ryan, his hand on my
hip, warm and steady, the other on my lower stomach, moving a little. Touching me.

“Do you want to talk about this?” he asks. He’s close, he’s so close. 

“No.” My voice breaks on the single syllable. I quickly add, “I’ve done this plenty of times.” I try to sound as confident as possible.

Ryan’s hand slides down, calloused fingertips sliding over my skin as he catches the hem of my t-shirt. “No,” he says, “you haven’t.”

He pulls up my shirt and kisses the skin that’s revealed, his mouth making contact, open and wet and hot, and oh, oh, oh. I whine at the back of my throat, my eyes slipping shut. Oh, his mouth, his tongue, sliding over my
stomach. This is what that feels like. His mouth places consuming, slow kisses on me. He pushes my shirt up further while his other hand moves to cup my behind, fingers catching the waistband of my briefs.

I’ve never – Never. Any of this. Sal in Flagstaff, a senior in high school. We just jerked each other off, and I kept watching his face when I used my hands to – And we made out more afterwards, and it was  nice, and then
he never spoke to me again. There was no nudity. I was fully dressed, just unzipped. Not exposed like this. Not getting caressed like this, the centre of attention, and it’s like Ryan wants me more than he can stand.

He groans against my stomach, a pleasured sound. He tugs down my briefs at the back, revealing my ass, and he cups it, rubbing it. The briefs get caught at the front by – but he’s making these  sounds, and he’s touching
me and kissing me, his nose pressed against my stomach, and my skin feels too hot to bear, so it’s not wrong that my body reacts like this. I can’t help it. Never could.

There’s no hesitance or shyness in anything that he’s doing. He’s clearly done this before. Plenty of times.

“You always smell so good after a shower,” he says, his tongue licking a hot stripe below my belly button.

“What?” I manage to ask, not grasping his words. I try to reconnect with the real world. What?

He pushes my shirt further up until it catches at my armpits. His mouth travels up, over my ribs, over my wildly beating heart. Oh God, we shouldn’t be doing these things to each other.

I step back when he stands up, his entire body brushing against mine. I lift my arms just in time for him to pull my shirt off, the fabric sliding over my mouth and nose, blocking my view. His mouth finds mine before I can
see again. He tastes like cigarettes, a taste I’m not used to and don’t like, but somehow it suits him. His lips are soft and sensual, his tongue brushing over my lower lip, deliberate and full of intent. His scent fills my nostrils
through the fabric, and I kiss back clumsily, wanting to kiss back well but not having the courage to do it properly.

The rest of my shirt gets pulled off the entire way, our lips parting. The room comes back into view, the dim yellowy glow back. I lick my lips and taste him. Oh God, I can  taste him. He’s shorter now without the shoes, but
he’s still taller than me, and I’d need to tilt up my head to kiss him but I don’t want to assume things, I don’t – although I want him to kiss me so badly, if he just –

He crooks one finger under my chin, angling me just so, and he dips down into a kiss.

And he kisses well. Oh god, he kisses so well, in a way that has my toes curling, that has every inch of my skin on fire. His mouth slides over mine, pressure until my lips part. His tongue teasingly sweeps over my lips,
licking its way into my mouth, and I groan when his tongue meets mine. The second man I’ve ever kissed, and so much better than the first. I try to imitate whatever he’s doing, tongue, more tongue, oh  Christ. He has no
shame at all – the kiss is dirty and sexual.

I follow his mouth when he pulls back, almost dipping over. He’s breathing hard, warm puffs of cigarette scented air over my lips. Our noses keep touching. I feel a shiver run through him. “Fuck, you’re so responsive,” he
says roughly, like that might be a problem. “Fuck, fuck.”

His hands slide into my hair and he kisses me harder. I clutch his sides awkwardly, feeling the shape of him beneath my hands. My eyelids flutter shut, and his mouth covers mine, his lips wet and talented, his tongue
exploring my mouth. I moan, and he pulls me closer. My brief-covered erection presses against him, and I expect him to push me away in disgust, but instead he groans, the sound animalistic. He drops one hand to my ass
and draws me in further. His hips do this insane, ludicrous, grinding motion, like he’s rubbing himself against my crotch, and I choke on my breath so badly that he has to pull back.

I manage to say, “I- I,” but then just leave it there because I don’t know, this is all just – just too much, his touch, what he’s doing, what  we’re doing. The skin around my mouth tingles, and his stubble, that’s the rough feel
against my skin – short, coarse hairs, so masculine that my knees feel weak.

He doesn’t seem put off by my stuttering. He takes a small step back, his gaze dropping between our bodies, and he places his hands on my hips. His thumbs rub slow, deliberate circles over my hipbones, my briefs
ridiculously tugged down at the back, but not at the front where the start of my pubic hair is visible, and then the fabric gets caught by the obvious bulge.

His thumbs slide under the waistband of my briefs. He keeps staring down at what he’s doing – fascination or maybe an experiment. But if he pulls them down, I’ll be naked. I’ll be naked in his presence, in the presence of
a man – He will see me naked, and no one ever has, and what’s worse is that he’ll see me aroused, and that’s taking it a step too far. How do I reverse something like that?

The briefs inch down, revealing more dark pubic hair, and he’s watching every second of it. My chest keeps rising and falling at a quick pace. The base of my swollen cock comes into view, and he slides the briefs even
further over the flushed length – God, it feels sensitive – until my cock springs free. I gasp, my cheeks burning with shame and want. He pushes my briefs down to mid-thigh in one, swift motion.

He chuckles, dark and deep from his chest. I’m small. I’m small? I’m ugly. He thinks I’m ugly, he –

“You’re leaking.” And then, “God, you’re leaking. Fuck, that’s so hot.”

I let myself look down, and a drop of clear liquid glistens at the slit of my cock. “Fuck.” He swallows hard, and his hands on my hips tremble for a split second. “And you always make me goddamn work for it.”

“We’ve never done this before,” I say feebly, his ‘you always this’ and ‘you always that’ catching at my ears.

“Haven’t we?” he asks, his mouth wantonly moving to my neck. He bites on the skin gently, and sudden pleasure radiates through me. Oh. Oh, Christ. Trickling heat flashes over my body, making my cock harder. He’s
found a good spot, a sensitive spot I didn’t even know existed.

“Ngh,” I manage, looking up into the ceiling, having been reduced to non-words, oh God, oh Christ, his mouth working on my neck, his teeth scraping the skin just right, tongue flicking perfectly, and this is too much, I’m too
turned on, clutching his hips and trying to hold on, oh God –

He fists my hair suddenly. The gasp of pain gets lost when he covers my mouth with his own. My scalp hurts, but the way – the control he takes, like he knows I like that. He pushes my briefs further down until they slide to
my ankles, and I step out of them clumsily, but he’s keeping our lips attached so he might not be giving points for gracefulness. I’m naked. Naked. His hands roam over my chest and my sides, fingers pressing into the skin
of my lower back, like he’s tracing me. The kissing is heated, and my clutched fists awkwardly press against his sides. I focus on just responding to the kiss. Trying to make it good.

“I was gonna say,” he starts huskily, wet lips brushing against my mouth. His hands come up between us and he starts unbuttoning his vest quickly and impatiently. I feel dizzy, watching his fingers work one button open at
a time. He places kisses on my lips, catching my lower lip and sucking on it. Oh wow. I groan helplessly, and he says, “Fuck.” He unbuttons the vest even faster. “Was gonna say that we don’t have to do anything you don’t
want to.” Vest unbuttoned. He instantly goes for his dress shirt. “But not anymore.” His bare chest and stomach come into view, my eyes cast downwards between us, taking in his pale skin. It’s more distracting than his
kisses. He pulls his dress shirt from his pants, undoing the last few buttons. “And I was going to go slow, just as slow as you want, but – but you know. You  knowthat they won’t go slow on you.” His lips hover over mine, his
shirt now hanging open. “I just don’t want them to hurt you. Can you understand that?”

“Yeah,” I lie. I have no idea what he’s talking about.

“Want you to be prepared.” He places a tender kiss on my lips, and the skin around my mouth feels raw from his stubble. He lets out a shuddery breath. “Fuck, I don’t think I’ll be able to control myself. Never can around
you. But you’ll like it hard, trust me. Taking my cock...”

A wave of heat washes over me, and I know I must be flushed all over by now, my mind soaring at him saying things like – sexual things, to me, such filthy things. He pushes his shirt and vest off his shoulders and down
his arms, pulling his wrists through the cuffs until he’s left bare. God, he looks amazing: pale, milky skin, and I can see where his ribs end and his flat stomach starts. He grabs my arms, spider-like fingers looping around
my wrists, and he places my hands on his waist. I’ve never touched another man like this. I’m standing naked in front of him, my arousal plain for him to see, and he’s inviting me to touch him in return, and God,
everything’s happening at once, but he doesn’t stop to let me process any of this – he kisses me quick and hard before taking a hold of my hips and turning us around. I lose balance when the backs of my knees make
contact with the bed, but the sheets feel clean against my back and ass as I move to lie on them, telling me to just lose myself between them.
Ryan’s standing by the foot of the bed. His long fingers are now undoing his belt very, very slowly. The outline of his erect cock is visible through the brown fabric, and it looks big, and he looks like he knows it’s big. I rest
against my elbows, my own erection lying against my stomach, still leaking.

In this motel room. With this man I met tonight. Two hours ago. But he is beautiful, and I love the way he touches me, I love the way he pulls me to him, love the way he tastes. And he’s barely touched me but my body
feels overly sensitive from his gaze alone.

I try to gulp without him noticing.

He notices.

I didn’t know anyone could have this affect on me.

He pops the top button of his pants. Slides the zipper down. Oh Christ, Christ. He’s not at all self-conscious – he knows he looks good, that I like what I’m seeing: dark hairs against pale skin, and then – He pushes his
pants and underwear down in one go, stepping out of his clothes. My eyes are focused on his crotch, his fully erect cock. He’s skinny otherwise, but his cock isn’t: it’s thick and darker than the rest of his skin. It’s longer
than mine, and it’s not my own but another man’s, his, and he’s hard because of me, because I turn him on, because he wants me.

I’ve never wanted to touch something as badly in my life.

His fingers curl around his cock, giving it a casual stroke that he doesn’t even seem to be aware of as he takes me in lying on the bed. Staring at me with want in his eyes while I stare at him, naked, about to...

There’s always been a small, tiny part of my brain that’s thought that when push came to shove, I’d back out. I’d realise that no, I’m not like that, it was all a big misunderstanding. I’m not like that.

Ryan gets on the bed. He crawls on top of me, gazing down with dark irises and hair flipping to his forehead. His hairy legs brush against mine, and he smells of cigarettes and a musky aftershave. I part my legs to
accommodate him without even thinking about it. The tip of his cock brushes the base of my own, hanging hot and heavy between us.

I’m like that. Every single part of me, even that part that’s still denying it, is so, so like that.

He slowly puts his weight on me, his knees digging into the mattress between my parted legs. I shudder as his crotch makes contact with mine, and then we’re stomach to stomach, chest to chest. The weight is
comfortable, familiar, almost, for some insane, insane reason. His left elbow rests against the mattress by my head, and he looks at me carefully. My skin is crawling with want, for him to do more, touch me because I like
that. Want to throw my head back with ‘Just touch me, please,’ but I’m scared of all the things I don’t know, so I hold his gaze, more turned on than I ever have been.

His other hand comes up and brushes hair from my forehead. He looks pensive – pensive, how can he even think right now, how can he – “What are you thinking right now?” he asks quietly.

Every time I breathe, I feel him above me, on me. Every time I move. The contact is divine, is making my cock throb and my mind spin. I’m caged under him, and somehow his overpowering presence is comforting. I feel
protected.

“I’m...” I stop to breathe, organise feelings into words. “I’m thinking that.” He shifts, and it brushes against me. Oh God. “That you’re really big.”

He laughs huskily, but it’s the truth – his hard dick is pressed between us, and he feels big, bigger than what I’ve had in mind in my fantasies. “Well,” he says, a masculine drawl leaving his slightly swollen lips. “You’re still
going to grow some, you know. Get a little taller. Your face will... become manlier. And your cock. That’ll get a bit bigger too, I noticed. I’ll still win the competition, but...” He grins broadly before he gets lost in looking at me.
Fire flares in his eyes. “Does it turn you on?”

“What?”

“My cock.”

He wants me to say it? Like it isn’t shamefully obvious already?

“Yeah.”

“Good.” His nose slides over my cheek and to my ear. He breathes me in, like he’s inhaling the scent. “The things I want to do to you...” he whispers, and I shiver. Things? What things? His teeth scrape my earlobe, and I
try to push closer to him. Get more contact.

He moves down, mouth trailing over my chin and throat, until his lips enclose around a nipple. His tongue licks over the bud, and my back arches as I try to keep quiet. That’s nice. That’s really  nice. I take deep breaths and
stare at the ceiling, see lights moving across it as cars keep driving on the interstate by the motel. But in here, on this bed, I’m lying on my back, about to be sodomised by this beautiful, sexual creature.

I’m so far from home. So, so far from home.

He kisses my belly button, tongue swirling around it and then dipping in. It tickles, almost, but even that sensation translates into pleasure, and all of his minor ministrations, the way he’s  still kissing my belly button, is
clouding my mind with unparalleled knowledge of being wanted. Craved. I want him too; I want him to not stop, to keep going.

His mouth now hovers over my cock, his hot breath washing over it. I shift restlessly, wanting so badly for him to touch me where I need him the most. His hot tongue swipes over the crown of my dick.

“Ryan,” I whine as a warning. That should not be allowed, that –

“Just relax,” he says, the words muffled by his lips now sliding over my length. I stare down at him, seeing him hover there, over my erection, lips brushing against the pink flesh. His pupils are blown and dark, and he looks
hungry. Our eyes meet. His fingers curl around the base. He licks his lips. “I want to taste you,” he says. His warm, wet mouth encloses around the head of my cock, tongue swiping over the slit, and then he sucks. My hips
lift off the mattress, and oh, oh, oh, God, that’s too good, that’s –

I bring my fist to my mouth and bite down hard, my eyes closing. Don’t fall apart, focus, focus on – on something other than his mouth, his tongue, doing such obscene things to my cock, the way he’s clearly licking away
the pre-come from my slit, milking out more by sucking me, and then licking it off again. The tip of his tongue presses right into the slit and he moans, and my entire body jerks violently. It’s too sensitive there, that’s too –

“Stop,” I gasp. My knuckles are decorated with imprints of my own teeth. “Stop. Oh God, stop.” He slowly pulls back, and I gasp for breath pathetically.

“Couldn’t help myself,” he says, sounding wistful but predatory. His nose rubs against my shaft as he goes further down, inhaling. His hands land on the insides of my thighs and he spreads my legs wide. His mouth places
hot kisses on my balls, and then his tongue licks just behind them. It takes effort to keep still, to not moan like a whore because I’m about to lose my mind. I close my eyes and bite on my tongue, but the moans still break
through.

His tongue licks lower and lower. I know I’m exposed there, and it’s beyond humiliating and wrong, letting him see me there, wanting him there, but it feels too good for me to pull away, even if I know that if he’s not careful,
he’ll –

His tongue moves over my hole slowly and deliberately. A part of me dies, and I clutch the sheets beneath us with both hands.

“What are you doing?” I ask, proud that I manage to form a coherent sentence, but it’s panicked. What is he doing? No one told me – when did – “What – Oh God. Oh please. Please.”

“Just relax,” he says, and then he’s kissing me there, wet tongue, soft lips, the stubble of his chin scratching my skin. His tongue flicks over my entrance slowly, and again, and again, and he groans and burrows in further,
leaving me wet with his spit. Nothing’s ever felt as good. I didn’t – Never occurred to me – don’t want him to stop when it’s so good, his mouth on me feels so  good. Pleasure is flashing through me from between my legs,
up my backside. He’s eating me out – eating out my ass – and my body is in complete overload. Oh God, oh Ryan, he should never stop, please don’t ever leave, I’ll do anything, just kiss me there, lick me there, Christ–

His mouth pulls back. I groan in protest, through a thick haze of pleasure. No. Why. Wait. “Here,” he says, grabbing my hand and leading it between my parted legs. I don’t even think; I just push my forefinger into my hole.
I groan and my hips shift to get more of my finger. God, I have to touch – so good, so wet from his spit, have to touch myself there –

“Fuck, tell me you do this a lot,” he groans, voice heavy with want. “Because you should. Every fucking day.”

“I don’t,” I groan, pushing the finger in me deeper, so badly wanting something inside me. I always feel ashamed afterwards, and still I do it. He’s watching me finger myself, working the single digit in and out of me. But
God, I need to, can’t not do this after what he did.

“Two fingers,” he says – orders – and I slip out my forefinger, pressing it tight against my middle finger. My hole’s wet from his spit – that’s clearly what he intended – and I rub my fingers there to help with the friction. The
muscles quiver from me rubbing them, but they want and need to be touched. “Come on,” he says, “let me see you do it.”

Through half-lidded eyes, I see him on his knees between my legs, staring down between us. His lips are swollen, his hair a mess, and his chest has reddened. His fingers dig into the backs of my thighs hard, calloused
fingertips pressing into my flesh. He wants to see me fingering my hole. Wants to watch. I push two fingers in.

“Oh God,” I moan, biting firmly on my lower lip as my eyes roll to the back of my head and my hips lift off the mattress.

“That’s it. That’s good, baby. Shit, you look so hot.”

I somehow manage to feel butterflies in my guts. Does he really think that? Does he think I’m hot like this? Somehow, his words drive me even crazier. The intrusion of my own fingers isn’t foreign, it’s just been a while, but
never, never has it felt this good. Never have I turned myself on as much as Ryan now has. A burning sensation circles in my veins – I need to get off, need to come. Oh God, I  really need to come.

“Push your fingers in further,” he orders. “Go on. Deeper.”

I obey blindly, my muscles gripping onto the intrusive digits. I’m hot and tight around my fingers, and it’s difficult to penetrate deep.

“Crook your fingers.”

I do, not sure why he wants me to, but I do, and it feels good, it all feels good.

“God, you’re so young,” he says, taking hold of my wrist and pulling at my hand. My fingers slip out, leaving me feeling desperately empty. It’s a different kind of need to get off – my cock is throbbing, wanting attention, but
the more desperate burn radiates from my slightly widened and slicked up hole. I need it there, right there, and Ryan’s – Jesus, Ryan’s cock, maybe – no, not maybe. That’s what he intends. Oh God, him inside of me, his
hot, thick member locked in me, in a way no one’s ever been. My mind is spinning, and my body just focuses on getting more, more, no matter how scary that is. “Look at me. Brendon, look at me.”

I do because – he’s sucking on two fingers, coating them in messy saliva – how did he – “I didn’t tell you. How do you know my –”

He pushes two fingers into me, spreading me open. Oh Christ, that’s too good. He doesn’t hesitate but pushes them in deep, deeper than I could, and my insides feel hot from the pressure. He crooks his fingers.

I’ve managed to keep somewhat quiet, I think, but then I just can’t. White heat engulfs me, my muscles squeezing his fingers. Scorching pleasure suddenly rattles through me. Oh God, that was  good, that was so – he does
it again, and again, until I don’t even care how he knows my name. He’s fucking me with his fingers, and my hips try to match the rhythm, to get more, more. It’s the most intense thing I’ve ever felt. I run my fingers over my
throbbing cock, leaking onto my stomach.

“Want to see you do it,” he says, grabbing my hand again. His fingers slip out, and I desperately push my index finger inside, but it’s not enough anymore. I groan, my head pressing into the pillow, my hips shifting
restlessly. He slides a finger next to mine, the two pressed together, his digit longer and going deeper than my own. We push our fingers in together, and I moan out into the room, the penetration too good to bear. Then he
pushes a second finger in me, and I tense up. The stretch is too much – two of his fingers next to my own – my muscles burning uncomfortably, a sharp pain appearing. He keeps his fingers moving, but I don’t dare move
my own. I hiss, my eyes screwed shut tight. “It’ll subside. Do this. Come on, it’ll help,” he says, and his fingers beneath my own are crooking upwards, pushing my own. The pleasure from before flickers suddenly. I crook
my finger simultaneously with his.

Jesus Christ.

“O-Oh, that’s – God, I can’t,” I breathe out erratically, overwhelmed. My muscles spasm, and when they clench down, I can feel our fingers in me that much better. It wouldn’t feel this good if we weren’t  meant to do these
things. Surely. God thinks of everything. God makes things perfect. He intended this. He must have.

The heat washing over me is more intense than before. The spot is sensitive, and God, it feels so good when we rub it, making my skin crawl and my cock pulsate. It burns and leaves me feeling open and full, and I can
barely breathe.

“Touch yourself,” he commands, and yes, God.

My free hand takes a hold of my cock, the pre-come having smeared the head. My fingers wrap around the aching flesh, and I pump it unceremoniously and quickly because I need to, just have to. Heat balls up in the pit of
my stomach, and it feels so good inside where our fingers are. He’s determining the rhythm, his hand between my legs pushing in faster, faster, and I feel the friction, feel him penetrating me, the slide of his fingers inside
me, and God, God, “God, God,” God – “Ryan, I’m about to –”

He crooks his fingers brutally hard, and I come undone. My muscles grip onto our fingers, and it makes the orgasm feel even better. Hot semen splashes onto my stomach, and I fist my cock wantonly, my hips lifting and
bucking, my body writhing. I feel my release all the way in my toes, up my thighs, every muscle contracting. Oh God, I didn’t know I could ever feel this  amazing.

I let go of my spent, still pulsating cock. I gasp for air, like I’ve come back from underwater. My skin tingles and the world is blurred. Oh God, what have we done, what sweet crime have we committed?

I carefully pull my finger out of my hole, but his remain inside, doing miniscule, miniscule hooking motions, making me shudder. My stomach’s decorated with white drops of semen, and only then do I realise that he
watched me, was watching the entire time. As we fingered me. As I touched myself. As I came.

“I’m sorry,” I manage in a rush, my voice rough. “I didn’t mean to, I –”

“Don’t be sorry. Fuck, you were so hot like that.” His fingers slowly pull out of me, leaving a stinging pain and a throbbing emptiness behind. “Wanted to see you come,” he says and leans over my lower half. His lips kiss
my left hipbone, tongue swiping the heated skin. “You’re making me so fucking hard, Bren.”

Am I? God, am I?

His mouth moves onto my stomach, and he starts licking off my come. It’s the most obscene thing I’ve ever seen or even thought of. He’s not done with me. Oh. He’s nowhere  near done with me, is he?

His cock presses against my thigh with a wet slide, and it’s the hottest thing I’ve ever felt. His lean, narrow body pushes against me when he reaches my mouth, my stomach now clean of my spilled semen, but I taste it on
his tongue, bitter and obscene. I don’t taste good, I don’t think, but he clearly thinks so, groaning, greedily pushing his tongue against mine. He wants me to taste it too.

His hips begin to move against me restlessly. I should try and get him off. Do something. Do some of the tricks that he clearly knows, but my mind’s fogged up and my body feels sated. I fall into the kissing, the way he
holds me close, his hands travelling over my skin possessively.

He snakes a hand between us, and it moves between my parted legs. He sucks on my lower lip as his forefinger runs over my widened entrance, where the muscles feel sore. I shudder, my muscles contracting at the
stimulation. He dips his forefinger inside regardless, hot and intrusive. It’s clear what he wants.

“Can we –” I start, stopping to swallow hard. His mouth slides to my ear, sucking on my earlobe. I like that. I had no idea I liked that, and it’s distracting beyond all measure. His wet lips pull on my flesh, and it’s like
he’s everywhere. Oh God. My heart beats wildly, irregularly, a crazy thumping in my chest from coming down after the orgasm, but then picking up again from everything he’s doing. “C-Can we get under the covers?” I ask,
my voice hoarse from the shameless moaning from before.

He lifts his head and looks genuinely surprised. “You want to get under the covers?” he repeats. Slight perspiration has gathered at the hollow of his throat. Something inside me caves in from how incredible he looks: locks
of brown hair pressed to his sweaty forehead, pupils blown and dark like he’s on drugs, his lips red and swollen from kissing, but most of all how his entire body says sex, when he breathes, moves, when he groans. Like
he’s fallen into what we’re doing head first, and all that exists for him is this bed and the things we’re going to do in it.

I nod to affirm it’s what I want, and though he looks surprised, he just nods. He impatiently tugs at the covers beneath us. I have to lift up my upper body, then my hips, and I make contact with his groin, his hard member.
He looks at me darkly when I accidentally grind against his erection. Fire sparks up inside me. Christ, ohChrist. He kicks the covers down before throwing them over us, hiding our naked, aroused bodies from view. Have
some sense of shame.

The second he’s settled on top of me, he reaches out to grab the tin box I noticed earlier on the nightstand. It says ‘Vaseline’ on it, and he tells me to twist off the top as he holds the bottom. “Dip your fingers in,” he says,
and I obey, my fingers digging into the thick, yellowy goo. I look from my fingers to his eyes and then at my fingers again, it all hitting me a bit too fast. “Rub it on me.” His voice has dropped an octave.

“You want me to...”

He leans down, our noses pressing together. He stares at me. “Want you to rub it on my cock.”

That’s. That’s what I thought.

Jesus.

I haven’t touched him there yet, but I now reach down between us, my eyes locked with his. His mouth drops open a little when my fingers first brush his cock. He breathes shallowly as I try to spread the Vaseline on him,
so that he can – can get inside me more easily. His flesh is warm in my hand, and he feels big, my fingers getting smeared with his pre-come as they slide over the head. My hand’s shaking, and breathing is difficult, my
throat closing in on itself. He bites on his lower lip and groans, pushing his cock further into my hand. The rattling sound he makes causes his body to vibrate against mine.

My hand awkwardly tries to get his dick as slickened up as it can, and I squeeze harder experimentally, try to do some of the milking motions he did before. I tighten my grip as my fist gets to the head of his cock, and he
growls and seems to lose his patience.

He snatches my hand, pulling it away and pinning it above my head. He kisses me hard as his hips roll down, his tongue brutally fucking my mouth. The head of his slicked up cock slides between my ass cheeks, and my
stomach drops. The kissing is wild, like he can’t get enough. He thrusts slightly, his cock dragging between my cheeks. “Fuck, I gotta have you,” he whispers, biting on my jaw, my neck, my lips. My body’s thrumming with
need and nerves, my cock semi-hard again. It’s still overly sensitive from the orgasm, but I can’t help how turned on I am, how I’m getting hard already.

The swollen head of Ryan’s cock presses against my entrance. I lose my breath, my heart skipping a beat. The sheets hang low on us, on his waist so that it can’t be seen. White sheets. Wedding sheets. Virginal sheets.

I close my eyes as the world seems to slow down. It’ll hurt – it’s more than three fingers. His member is thicker and longer, it’s several inches of hard cock. I don’t think there is any way I can take him, but he doesn’t care,
and I know that. That he’ll take me regardless. His mouth slides across my cheek slowly, more gentle now. He’s got a hand between us, holding his cock. He pushes forward, just to add pressure to my entrance. He feels
sticky and too big, and I inch up on the bed before I can stop myself. Away from the intrusion.

His hand lands on my shoulder instantly, squeezing too hard and keeping me still. When I open my eyes, he’s staring down at me hotly, moving his hips until the pressure’s back. More pressure this time, and something’s
got to give – I will, my muscles will, I know I’ll open up for him. There is no other choice.

“You gotta want it,” he says. “Trust me, I know.”

He knows. He knows what he’s doing. Okay. Alright. He knows.

He slowly pushes forwards, and I stay still. I feel myself opening up to accommodate the head of his cock.

“Fuck,” he hisses, face flashing in pleasure, and then he thrusts forward, slowly and intently. He doesn’t take his eyes off of me, and I can’t look away, just  can’t. The head of his cock pushes inside, and I whine helplessly.
His hand moves from my shoulder to my hair, pulling, preventing me from looking away. His hot breath washes over my lips as he leans closer to me, and he inches inside, watching my face as he does so. The drag is hot
and painful, and I grab his forearm hard.

“Ryan, oh God. Please,” I beg, not even knowing what I’m asking.

He comes to a stop, and I hyperventilate. He’s deep inside of me, so deep, and as my hips lift I feel him. It’s too much, far too much, I –

“Just a bit more,” he says and, without warning, he pushes in the rest of the way until he’s buried to the hilt. We finally break eye contact as my head tilts backwards, my hips bucking, no God and please more – “That’s it,”
his words hot against my ear, “I’m in you. It’s okay. Baby, it’s okay.”

It’s not okay, it’s not. I want to claw his back and fight him off and for him to pin me down and remain inside me like this, no matter what I say or how much it hurts. Because it does hurt, but I like it, I  like it. He’s inside me.
Oh God, all of him is inside me.

I hold on, my fingers slipping up his arm, and soon my nails dig into his shoulder blades, just to navigate the sudden sensations.

His face presses into the crook of my neck, and he shivers against me as I try to recover from the shock of intrusion, get used to him. “God,  yes,” he groans against my skin, and his hips draw back and he pushes in me
again, which is followed by another guttural groan from him. My mind blacks out, and I cling onto him as I cry out. He doesn’t let me pull myself together, not at all. He starts a rhythm, starts fucking me, groaning as his hips
move.

“You feel so fucking good right now.” His mouth presses against mine, tongue dipping in. “God, you’ve never been this fucking tight.” He grabs the sides of my face and deepens the kiss. His hips keep working between my
legs like he can’t help himself, and my mind spins from him thinking I’m hot, that I turn him on.

He’s also right. It is good. Even if it hurts, the feel of him inside me has me melting, making my body burn up in arousal. A damn attractive, older man is barely in control as he fucks me, his groans and sounds, his sweaty
skin and his thrusting hips – And I’m in the middle of it all, getting devoured. It’s hotter than I can stand, and I can’t think or speak, I just hold on and respond to his touch, feeling primitive.

Our mouths crash together, but this time because I kiss him. I kiss him and kiss him and groan into his mouth, my hands in his hair. Take me. Have me. Fuck me. I don’t care.

This is what I’ve been after. This is it. It brings the world into focus, and I’m not so lost and I’m not so alone. He’s getting pleasure out of me, and I’m getting pleasure out of him. So much pleasure. So
much goddamned pleasure.

His hips pull back almost all the way, keeping only the head of his cock in me, and then he pushes back in at a different angle. I fist his hair hard without meaning to, my body seizing up as I gasp against his mouth, my
eyes flying wide open. He does it again, watching me carefully, and pleasure radiates from where he is inside me. I groan, my voice lower. God. God, more of that, that –

“Does it still hurt?” he asks from behind a veil of pleasure.

“Yes.” I breathe in hard, trying to control the way my body responds to him sliding into me steadily. “But I like it,” I add, the stinging sensation of his cock in me heightening the pleasure of it.

“Of course you fucking like it,” he drawls, and fire pools up at the pit of my stomach. “You just, really, really –” He thrusts hard to the melody of his voice, “– love cock. Even now, when you’ve never been fucked open like
this.” He groans loudly, adding more force to his thrusts. “Fuck, you should see yourself. Taking me so well... Driving me insane…” His voice fades out as another thrust pushes me closer to the edge. He supports himself
above me properly to put more force into his thrusts. My hands slide down his sweaty back all the way to the sheet that’s dangerously slipping lower as he moves. All I can focus on is the way he’s fucking me, the angle so
perfect and hitting the sensitive spot inside me. My cock has hardened again, despite me having come not too long ago. He notices my arousal as well as I do, and his eyes turn even darker. He fucks me harder like he
wants to know how loud he can make me.

“I feel so full,” I gasp, not ever having known that I was ever empty. He pushes in brutally deep, and I cry out, my eyes screwing shut. “God, Ryan.”

Something seems to change in him because he orders, “Say that again.”

I don’t follow until I do, so I repeat his name. “Ryan. Ryan, oh God, Ry.” I don’t even know where the nickname comes from, it just appears on its own and somehow fits.

“Christ, Bren,” he hisses, heavy breathing against the shell of my ear. “Don’t you ever come for them the way you do for me.” There’s a desperate urgency to his words that I can’t understand. He yanks my hair hard, and
God, I feel so wanted, so incredibly wanted. “You got that?”

“Yes,” I breathe out, his mouth ghosting over my cheek and moving to my lips.

“Yes what?”

Our eyes meet, and it takes effort to focus on him, but his words are strained, like it’s taking equal effort for him to form the sentences. “Yes. Ryan.”

He seals my lips in a kiss, and this time when he thrusts in, I move to meet him. I freeze up the second that I do, the feel of it consuming me. I tremble beneath him, my cock throbbing already. I won’t last. I can’t last. “I’m
close,” I rasp out.

“Fuck,” he groans. “Come on.” He quickly pulls the covers off of us. Sudden shame hits me from knowing it’s all in plain view, our hips thrusting, the connection of our bodies. Just as I look down to see the way the base of
his cock is visible between my legs, he pulls out, and so I see him reappearing inch by inch, feeling it. The head slips out, and my muscles squeeze around nothing.

“What are you – Please, want you back inside,” I say, the burning need more urgent than the pain I’m more aware of now that he’s no longer in me.

“I know, I know,” he whispers urgently, his hand grabbing my hip. He turns us around on the bed until I’m on top, trying to balance myself as I hover above him. His cock slides wetly against my pubic bone. He’s leaking as
he’s fucking me. I’ve probably got come in me already.

His hands slide up my chest and push me upwards, and my knees press into the mattress by his sides as I sit up, my hand on his chest for balance.

“Wha –”

“You know what to do,” he says, his hands on my hips, fingers pressing in too hard. He looks fucked beneath me, wet hairs stuck to his forehead. I know what to do? I know what to do. What I want. Him. Inside.

I shift back, his cock sliding against my balls. I keep watching him, trying to make sure I’m doing this right, that I’m not misreading the signs and doing it all wrong. “Christ,” he swears, sounding more turned on than before,
and his hand slips between us to hold his cock at the base for me.

My chest rises and falls as I breathe fast, positioning myself until my hole is pressing against his cock again. I feel hungry and desperate, a yearning I’ve never felt, and I sink down onto him. We both gasp as I push onto
his cock, as he fills me up again. God, it’s good, unbearably good.

“I don’t know if – God, I don’t think I can –”

“Just stay still,” he orders, and I try to, my muscles squeezing tight around him, sending flashes of pleasure up my spine. I can’t, I can’t –

His hips buck up, and my mouth drops open. Oh God. He starts fucking up into me, his hips moving treacherously slowly. I can’t keep quiet when he fucks me just right, and the more sensitive I feel, the more wound up my
body gets. Something inside me gets pulled tighter and tighter, so hot I can’t stand it.

I wrap my fingers around my cock, my fingers touching my aching flesh. My hips begin to move with his thrusts, slowly at first because I don’t know how to move, how to do it, but I just  need to. I end up disrupting his
rhythm trying to meet it, but his hands on my hips begin to guide my movements, up and down, up and down, as he fucks into me. He’s louder now than he’s been before, from the husky groans earlier. He’s now moaning
louder, face flashing in pleasure. He must be close too, because I know I am, my body pushed to the edge.

Soon I’m riding him, actually riding another man, my head thrown back and my hips working fervently. I don’t even realise that he’s stopped moving until I suddenly do, that he’s letting me do the work. His hands are
restlessly dancing over my lower stomach and chest, consuming touches. His hips do miniscule thrusts, like he can’t help it, and I work my hips the best I can to get his cock as deep as it can go. It takes a while but I find
the right angle too, but it’s too much so I keep it slightly off the target, try to keep the pleasure bearable.

“We really like this one,” he says. I’m not sure who this ‘we’ is – is he referring to himself in the plural, or is he talking about- about him and I, but – But I do like this one, whatever he might mean. This one’s good. Oh
Christ, it’s too good, and he angles his hips so that his cock pushes into me just right.

“Please don’t,” I groan when he grabs my hips and won’t let me change the angle. It’s too much that way, it’s too good.

“Let yourself come,” he says, now working his hips again. I can’t stop riding him, not even when the pleasure makes me feel scared because my body stops being my body, my body starts feeling foreign. “You gotta let go.
Trust me.”

Those two words again. Trust him.

“Touch yourself.”

I obey instantly, and it’s that instant that I give up and trust him. Our hips work together, harder and faster, and I fist my cock, my body arched and my head thrown back. The headboard’s banging against the wall, and
we’re too loud for our own good, but the pleasure of it, the pleasure, the pleasure – I thumb my leaking slit, and my muscles squeeze his cock harder and harder, so hard that it hurts, and I can’t, I can’t, and I pull my own
hair, and that’s –

I double over, my hand landing on Ryan’s chest for balance at the last second. I fist my cock furiously as it jerks in my hand, stripes of come erupting. Ryan keeps fucking into me although I tell him it’s too much,
too fucking much. He comes inside me, and I have no words, no thoughts, he just radiates life beneath me. I feel him emptying his load in me, our hips grinding together. My cheeks feel wet, and nothing makes sense, not
a damn thing.

“Oh. Oh, God,” he breathes out, hips bucking irregularly like he can’t control the aftershocks. His hips lift off the mattress and push me up, and I hold on, my hand smeared with white semen. I open my eyes, and he looks
dazed. Wrecked. Fucked.

I can’t imagine what I look like.

His hips move back down onto the mattress. His fingers caress my hipbones absently as he comes down and tries to recover. I remain where I am, with him inside me, my come splattered all over his stomach. I let go of
my cock and breathe. Breathe. Shiver. Try to re-emerge from underwater.

“Well,” he says, panting. “Now I know you’ve always been a natural.”

The painting above the headboard has tilted to one side, and it looks like the mountains are sliding downwards.

***

I wake up to a sudden, drunken yell. A flashing motel sign shines through a pair of curtains, and I don’t know where I am. Silhouettes of drunken men move along, mumbling nonsense amongst themselves. Warm heat is
pressed against my back. Even breaths against the shell of my ear. An arm wrapped around my chest, holding me close. Ryan.

I remember now.

Oh Father.

I slowly move onto my back, not wanting to wake him up. He presses into my side, his head on a pillow. His hair’s in disarray, and he looks younger when he’s asleep. Less troubled somehow. I stare at the ceiling and
breathe in steadily. He wraps an arm around me tighter, his nose pressing into my neck. He lets out a content sound. I feel sore all over from his mouth, his stubble, his hands, his grip... My body feels used. My hole feels
wet. Filled up.

I wasn’t sure if he’d be here when I woke up, but he is. It’s dusk outside, the light shining through the curtains a lot lighter than it was when we fell asleep.

The covers hang low on our waists, and I see teeth and nail marks on my chest and stomach. He said that he’d take me hard. He did warn me.

I can’t fall back asleep, not again. It’s all flooding in now, my mind no longer clouded by lust or desire. What he did to me. What we did.

My bladder’s full, uncomfortably so, and I slowly inch Ryan’s arm from around me. I look at his face, and he seems to frown in his sleep as I slip out of bed, but he doesn’t wake up. His hand lands on where I was, fingers
digging into the sheets.

Standing up was not a good idea. I flinch the second I do, a sharp pain, like needles, prickling my behind and radiating up my spine. I suck back a hiss and walk slowly to the bathroom door, limping as I go. Something runs
down the back of my thigh. I know what it is without looking.

The bathroom light flickers on. The clothes that I wore last night are still in a pile on the floor. I close the door quietly, blinking against the sudden brightness. I push the toilet seat up and take a leak. My cock’s in my hand,
flaccid and sore. Flecks of dried come are splattered across my pubic hair. There’s a bruise on my left hipbone: Ryan’s teeth. I try hard to remember when he did that, but can’t.

I flush the toilet. Stagger to the sink, twist the taps open. The light flickers above the mirror, and I make the mistake of looking at myself.

I look fucked. God, I look so fucked: my mouth’s red from beard rash, my hair’s a – Is that come in my hair? I swat at it quickly. And Ryan’s marked me all over with his mouth and his nails. There’s a lingering sensation
inside me where I can feel his cock. When I move. When I walk. Knowing that he’s been inside of me. His come is still rolling down my inner thigh.

I stare at myself blankly. Well, you did it now. You did it, and you loved it. You loved it, riding his cock, letting him do whatever he wanted. You know it’s true. You would have let him do whatever he wanted to you. You
didn’t care. You got so into it, didn’t you? What would your mother say? What would your father say?

“Shut up,” I whisper. The mirror’s fogged up from the running hot water. “Shut up, shut up.” I close the taps and end up gripping the edges of the sink, leaning over it. About to hurl. Breathing hard. Saliva dripping from my
mouth into the sink.
There’s nothing wrong with it. There’s nothing – It felt so good with him, so – How could that be wrong?

I’m not ashamed. I do not have to feel ashamed. I am not ashamed that after all the years of advice and love and then hate, this is what I’m doing. Getting screwed by anonymous men in roadside motels. Not mommy’s
little boy anymore. Not anybody’s anything.

I sit down on the bathroom floor tiles, hugging my knees tight. The pain is obvious. I’m cold and sore and alone, and Ryan’s in that bed, but he’s not going to stay. I knew that the second I saw him, and I accepted it right
from the start. I knew that he wouldn’t be taking me home either. None of them will.

I’m not anybody’s anything.

Could disappear and no one would even notice.

I draw in a shivery breath, and then another, and another, and I could disappear right here. Don’t know where I’m heading. Norman said that Omaha’s nice. Maybe I’ll go there. Maybe I’ll get lost on the way, and no one will
ever know, anyway.

Have to keep going forward either way, because I can’t go home anymore. They’d know. They’d take one look at me and know the things I’ve done tonight, and now I’ll never see any of them again, will never see my
mother. It’s so much more final now.

My forehead presses against my knees, and I try out this disappearing act as my shoulders shake. I let it wash over me, not trying to hold it back. It’s been a while. It’s been months since the last time I gave myself the
luxury to be weak, but every bad thing that’s happened since, every day of struggling and lying and trying to go unnoticed like I don’t matter, because I’m just an unnatural abomination, and we all know that, every
tiny thing. They all wash over me, alongside Ryan fucking me, taking me so completely, and I let myself cry and cry because it’s the only thing left to do.

I slip deep into it as the world around me slips out of focus, and it remains that way until something soft and solid engulfs me, a pair of arms and a warm body. I can’t even make out what he’s saying at first, but I try to push
him off. He won’t let me. His lips find my face, my cheeks, but I duck my head.

“Calm down, just calm down,” he says, and even though I try to stop him, he manages to pull me into his arms. My forehead presses against his collarbone, and he’s as naked as I am, the warmth of the sheets still on him.
I breathe in hard, and his fingers card through my hair soothingly. “Baby, just calm down,” he hushes me, words pressed to the shell of my ear and accompanied by a kiss.

But I can’t calm down, and another sudden sob rattles through me. He holds me tighter. “You will get out of here,” he whispers. “You will survive this and you’ll make a life for yourself.” A small, scared laugh breaks through
from between the tears, because that’ll be the day, sure, that’s likely, when I’m drowning and tired and alone, and I can’t anymore. His fingers caress the nape of my neck. “You will. I know you will. And you’ll be stunning
and you’ll break hearts.” He pauses before whispering, “You’ll break my heart.”

I lift my head enough to look into his eyes. He’s broken, so clearly broken that I don’t know how I missed it before. There’s loss and love and hate and warmth in his touch. His nose brushes against mine as he leans in, his
lips hovering over mine. “And I will love you.”