You
glance at the clock on the computer screen with only a vague
realization that it’s what you’re doing. It’s become pretty
automatic by now—a slight shift in your focus, and you know how much
longer you’ll be sitting here. How much longer it will be before
you see him again. Your stomach churns and your groin aches at
the thought. You wonder where he
is right now, what he’s thinking about. Is he thinking about
you? You aren’t sure. There was a time when you would have
said “yes”
without hesitation, when he was thinking about you pretty much all the
time. Now that he *has* you, though...now what does he think
about?
This morning,
you sat through breakfast seeing him in your peripheral vision,
watching him eat, noting the fluidity of his movements while performing
even the
most mundane daily activities. And you remember thinking to
yourself,
“It will be good to spend a few hours away from him.” Sometimes
he
seems to be too much—too big of a presence, filling too much of your
universe. You’re pretty sure it’s not healthy. As you
sipped your juice, he leaned close and breathed words onto your
neck. “You gonna eat that?” He pressed his thigh against
yours, extended his hand, and plucked a
piece of toast from your tray.
“Guess
*not*,” you snorted, shaking your head and leaning away. He just
laughed
and nudged your leg playfully with his as he leaned back and resumed
eating. The real kicker was that your face was hot, your skin was
tingling, and your dick was starting to get rigid. Just from
that. (It’s
even getting that way right now, just from the memory of it.)
Yessss...it’s probably good to get away from him for a few hours...
The problem
is this: when someone or something occupies that large a space in your
life, a great gaping hole is left behind when they’re not there.
You suppose that feeling will lose some of its intensity as those two
weeks in lockdown recede into the past. Right now, you’re still
used to breathing his air almost exclusively. You’re used to the
constant, wet smell of your shared sweat and sex, ebbing and flowing
like
a fragrant, salty tide—strongest in the early morning, fading slowly
throughout
the day. The two of you created your own circadian rhythms,
within
and around the one laid out for you by the lights turning on and off.
Much of each
day in lockdown was spent sleeping. Not all that much of each
night was. Readjusting to the normal routine isn’t going to be
easy, if today has been any indication. You’ll be working, typing
away, and then the screen is blurry, then your eyes are closing.
We’ll just have to spend more time sleeping at night from now on, you
think. Starting tonight.
You close
your eyes for a moment, and now you’re lying in the bottom bunk, and
he’s
kneeling beside your head as his wicked tongue licks its way from your
sternum to your crotch. His body slowly unfolds, and then you’re
stretched out side by side and in reverse, sucking each other.
You
probe the silky skin filling your mouth and suck greedily, salivating,
hungry for the taste. His rich scent reminds you of hot
rain-soaked
earth, and you expand your lungs with it, absorb it into your
blood.
You hold his ass tightly and dig your fingers in, and he groans—he
always
likes that, when you grip him tight enough to hurt. It probably
confirms
for him how badly you need this. His tight muscles become even
tighter
under your hands, and now he’s taking you all the way in, all the way,
squeezing
you in his throat, the way he knows you can’t. In defiance, you
draw
your head back and work only the tip of his cock with your lips and
tongue,
determined to stay in your right mind long enough not to embarrass
yourself.
He knows what you’re doing and exactly why you’re doing it—he chuckles
in
the back of his throat, and you can feel it more than hear it, a hot
vibration that makes all your muscles twitch.
Mmmmm...yeah...last night was sweet... You open your eyes, not
quite able to focus
on the computer screen. You realize your cock is straining
desperately against the fabric of your pants. In the last two
weeks you’ve spent a greater amount of time hard than during any
comparable period of your life. Is that significant? Does
it say something about you? Maybe about latent homosexuality that
had always been there but was never acknowledged? Or maybe it
simply says something about how long you’ve been in this place with no
one touching you—at least, not in a *good* way. Or maybe it’s
just him.
“Tobias?”
You lean
forward and scoot your chair farther under the desk as you resume
typing. “Hmmmm?”
“Is
everything alright?”
You can tell
that your face is flushed. You grin a little, feeling
caught. Sister Pete is peering at you over her glasses in a very
nun-like way.
“Sure.
Just a little tired, I guess.”
You know she
knows. She knows you’re back together with him, and you know it
horrifies her. She thinks he’s a monster, a manipulative
predator, and you’re his victim, his prey. You like to think
otherwise.
“We have a
lot of work to catch up on, Tobias.” Her voice is a bit curt.
“I
know.” You start typing faster.
You manage to
get a good 10 or 15 minutes of solid work in before you’re back on that
bottom bunk with his hard dick in your mouth. And yours in
his...oh, *man*... His tongue is doing all kinds of crazy things
to you, slithering and flicking and nudging and winding. You wish
you could make him come first, but if this is a contest, you’re *way*
outmatched. You grip his thighs and shove them apart, and you
hear him grunt as you reach between his legs and slowly caress his
perineum. He does seem to
interpret it as some sort of challenge. You begin to shake as two of
his
fingers push inside you, move in and out of you, and then oh god oh god
oh god you’re coming so hard you can’t even draw enough breath to make
a sound, and you have to release him from your mouth before something
really
bad happens.
He swallows
everything you have in you and then flips you over onto your
stomach—he’s impossibly strong and you’re quivering and helpless,
boneless and barely coherent. He coats himself with lube and
starts fucking you while you’re still twitching with orgasmic
aftershocks. He pounds you
fast and deep and comes within seconds, pulling hard at a fistful of
your
damp hair. Afterwards, he collapses slowly onto your back.
He strokes your hair gently and presses his lips against the nape of
your
neck. He’s heavy, and his body is so hard and unyielding, but you
want him to stay there, inside of you and covering you. “My
strength
and my shield,” you think to yourself, giggling a bit nervously at the
sacrilege of it. Here in Sister Pete’s office, no less.
You glance
over at her and see her looking at you strangely. “Sorry,” you
mutter, dazed, still smiling. You feel her continuing to stare at
you as
you type; maybe she’s wondering if you’re using again. It’s kind
of what you’re acting like. And if you really think about it,
that
interpretation is not too far off the mark, all things
considered.
Did you really need heroin more than you need him? Is he any less
central to your day-to-day existence than martinis used to be?
He stays
inside you for a long time after he comes, just as you hoped he
would.
Sometimes you wonder if he can read your mind. He shifts his
weight
until you’re both lying on your sides, his arm tight around your chest,
his breath warming your scalp. You’re able to see yourselves
reflected in the glass wall of the pod, and the sight of his muscular
arm around
your naked body looks strange to you, still. You suddenly see
yourself as someone else might see you: in a prison bunk, in the middle
of the
night, having just been fucked up the ass by a dangerous brute of a
criminal. Then he pulls you closer, and you feel a sharp
twinge of guilt for thinking that way about him. You don’t mean
it, really. You squeeze his arm and hug it tightly against your
chest, and he makes a
sleepy noise, pushing his face further into your hair. You know
you
should go back up to your own bunk until round two, just in case the
hacks
decide to stroll by (although they do so less and less as lockdown
wears
on, it seems), but you’re very comfortable.
“Stay here,”
he mumbles, his voice heavy with fatigue.
Your heart
sings with the knowledge that he wants you sleeping beside him.
Mmm
hmm, yeah, you’re in love with him, alright. God help you.
The
pattern of his breathing soon becomes steady and regular and lulls you
to sleep.
Now you’re
staring off into the distance, past the computer screen, feeling warm,
thinking about what will happen tonight. You can both sleep
during that dead time before lights out. That’s a few hours right
there. That will help. The time when the lights are off,
though—that’s really too precious to waste. When the buzzer
sounds and it’s suddenly dark, when you crawl into the bottom bunk
where he’s waiting for you, always waiting there to take you in his
arms...that’s when the really significant part
of your day begins. Being with him is one of the only things
worth
being awake for in this place. You have no intention of missing
it. Sleep—you’ll get enough of it, some way or another.
It’s entirely
secondary.
Sister Pete
might be inclined to disagree. She’s looking at you out of the
corner of her eye, tapping her fingers on her desk. “Tobias,
what’s
going on with you today?”
“Um...”
You can feel your face turning red again, and you’re unable to meet her
eyes. “I, uh...well...I guess it’s just, you know, just finally
getting out of lockdown and all...”
She holds
her hands out in front of her face, gesturing for you to say no
more. “You know what? Never mind. I probably DON’T
want to KNOW.” She sighs and pretends to start working again, but
her eyes are darting
in all directions, not looking at the papers in front of her. She
sighs again and stands. “Tobias...”
“Yeah?”
You sit back in your chair and politely give her your full attention.
She moves
to the front of her desk and sits back on it. “I hope
you...” She shakes her head. “Tobias, please just be
careful. Chris may not be the man you think he is. He tries
to make people think he’s
changed, but I don’t think he has. Frankly, he hasn’t.”
You sigh,
not really knowing how to respond. “I love him,” you say,
shrugging
helplessly. Your tone makes it clear that you think no further
explanation should be required. In any event, you would be unable
to provide it.
“You need
to ask yourself,” she begins, her voice a little too loud, full of
anger. She takes a deep breath and tones it down as she
continues. “Ask
yourself. Is a man like him even capable of loving you
back?
You deserve better than that, Tobias.”
“Do I?”
you snort ruefully. What a laughable idea, really. If she
only knew. If she could only see the way her good friend Tobias
manipulated Andy Schillinger—the way you took advantage of his
vulnerability,
the way you made him believe you cared about him. Compare that
with
the way Keller manipulated Sister Pete. And then think about
which
plot ended with someone in a body bag. As misguided and full of
fucked-up Keller logic as it was, he did what he did because he loves
you, and now Sister Pete is very hurt and upset. You did what you
did in the interest of cold and ruthless vengeance, because you hate
Vern
Schillinger. And now Andy is very dead.
You turn back
to the computer and try to dismiss her from your mind. “We’ve got
a lot of work to do...” you mumble, hating yourself intensely for
a moment. For God’s sake, he was just a kid... You close
your eyes and remember what it felt like when Andy was cradled in your
arms in the middle of the night, and suddenly that memory fuses
sickeningly
with a memory of holding your own son when he had chicken pox, burning
with fever. It brings you to your feet.
“Tobias?”
You look at
her, your mouth open as if poised to speak. You feel like you
want to tell her everything. What you did, who you really are,
what you *really* deserve. No... You need to have her stay
your friend. You close your eyes and shake your head, sitting
back down in your chair. “Nothing.”
You start
typing again, trying to keep your mind clear and focused. Soon
enough, though, your consciousness has drifted back into the pod, drawn
as if by a magnet, and you’re with him again. Last night, every
night, he takes you in his arms, and the first thing he does is kiss
you,
slowly. Just like that kiss at midnight on New Years Eve.
You
know it’s his way of making you understand that he isn’t Schillinger,
that
he isn’t the same Chris Keller who hurt you, that he loves you.
He does love you. Every night he kisses you as if it’s the first
time. Sometimes you can feel him trembling with the effort it
takes
to restrain himself, but he still makes it just as sweet. Things
almost always become fierce and frantic after that, the bed creaking
beneath
a molten, twisted mass of hard limbs and slick muscles, cocks and
tongues
and grasping fingers. But at its core you know there’s love—you
know
that you love him and he loves you. It’s probably more than you
deserve,
but it’s the thing that gets you through each day, providing you with
the
certainty that you still have a beating heart and lungs that draw
air.
It’s a tangible reminder that there is something other than hate that
can
get you out of bed every morning.
