A gay story: Glass Butterfly: Prelude to a Kiss One
Patrick knocked on the door of the sterile white room. He greeted me from behind the abrasive expression of a mask. Our embrace pulled me snug against his growing cock. The tips of my thumbs traced downward and around defined obliques, tracing the arrow that pointed to his cock. His definition felt sharp against my fingers. Deep brown eyes held my gaze. I started to speak but a finger touched my lips followed by a voice like a whisper in my ear. “It’s ok” it said “we are only brothers in name.” With that, I could taste Patrick’s tongue with my own. I heard the sound of water on the windows and all the roof tops. Rain had awakened my senses. The sky exploded turning thick like cream. Patrick’s back was slippery with it and his body swayed at the hips from side to side, jerking his cock from left to right. He looked me in the eyes, not with the smile that greeted me but with one of pure greed, the mask had changed. “You want me to make it hurt bro?” My heart was pounding, pumping the guilt throughout my body. Paralyzed by the ghost.
I sat up a little disoriented. My cock was still hard from both the dream and the fact that I had to pee. The shower was running in the bathroom so I figured Patrick must have tipped in not wanting to wake me. I rolled off the bed and knocked on the door without waiting for an answer. “How long have you been back” I was asking while fumbling to wrestle my erect cock through the zipper. It was juiced. A perfect drop of precum clung to the tip but was washed away in the stream of my relief.
The water fell silent and the shower door slid open. I turned to face Havier. He’d caught a glimpse of my pride and smirked. “Patrick will be home soon. You may want to clean up a bit” he added with a curt grin. I tried to smile but realized my jaw hurt. It felt like shit. Then it started coming back, to me – the surprise visit to see my brother only to find him out of town, and his boyfriend punching me in the face.
I remembered Havier showing me to the room. He placed my bag next to the bed and pointed out the bath. The fit of his shirt tightened with the outstretched arm. He gestured toward the balcony that held a view of Lake Travis, “here is the closet space, and internet access if” I needed he went on. His biceps bulged and I could see the veins. I remembered the way his weight felt on top of me from the night before. I’d fought the urge not to look at the shadowy outline of his crotch. When he stepped out of the shower I already knew what his dick looked like. My memory of him remained perfectly clear. The part of me that he had touched the night before tensed as he emerged from the steam.
I wanted to stop pissing but couldn’t. Havier got out and sidled past. I felt moisture on my shoulder and got a look at the perfectly trimmed pubes that rested at the bottom of a very thin tusk of hair running from his chest. He disappeared down stairs taking some clothes from the closet, not bothering to cover up. His dick was darker than the rest of him, just like I liked. The world seemed to have been moving slow. I could count the individual drops of mist clinging to his scrotum, the way the steam parted to let him pass. The feeling was of bliss. I could feel the satisfaction of my sex. It felt drained. I came into myself realizing that I was still high.
I showered to wash away the cum that had dried on my chest. Flakes. DNA. The proof of things that had been. After that I read in the circular garden beneath the crate myrtles and practiced a couple of breathing exercises to clear my head. The weather was good for May and I tried to enjoy the outside air. I’d picked up a copy of Kenneth Mark Hoover’s “Fevreblau” from my brother’s office and decided to read a bit. If I like it, I’d take it with me when I left I figured.
A phone rang inside and after a couple of minutes Havier stepped onto the deck and relayed again that “Patrick was on his way.”
“Did you tell him that I was here?” Havier just shrugged. What was the point. “Dinner smells good” I wanted to sound reassuring. Like everything was perfectly ok.
“It’s Caruru do Par. I like African and Asian foods, so I’ve been trying different recipes. Patrick never compliments my cooking” he paused. “Let’s hope it tastes as good as it smells.” We both tried to laugh a little and it felt rather sentimental even though we hadn’t spoken for several years, but spent the night fucking like Tina addicts.
The evening of my arrival we had cozied up to a nice meal and grew a lot friendlier than we should have. “I see little of your brother these days. I’m usually here by myself most of the time.” It turned out not all was well in paradise.
I asked him how he entertained himself. “I don’t know anything about Austin. We just moved here, what? Two months ago when Patrick’s, dad bought him the house and set him up with the job. I mean, you know, your dad too.”
Patrick could never find his wits about joy I scoffed to myself. Dad had to always rescue him. The things he liked, craved, and desired always came easy. Havier had been one of them.
We’d agreed to reunite and kick off the start of summer, but never set a date. “I haven’t seen you in three years, and I miss you a lot bro. I still don’t know why you decided to move out of the fuckin country, and I know that’s a sensitive issue so I’ll shut up but, only if you promise me a weekend.” As always, much of what came out of Patrick’s mouth wasn’t true. “I hope you’re not still pissed over that Havier thing cause that’s over.”
He once said that I was the only guy who knew how rich he was, had seen his hard on and still refused him what he wanted. “I remember that” I’d responded laughing, “it wasn’t impressive the first time I saw it, nor the one hundredth.” It was only a case of stupid pride that kept me from it; truth is I wanted to fuck those nights and hated the way he teased me. The fact that I wanted him made me feel the lesser of a whole.
Havier had been full of sly questions about what I’d been doing. He went farther than necessary to make me feel welcome. On the drive to the house he tried to embrace the silence in conversation, which didn’t work. But, it was nice to hear his voice, even though it was mostly nervouse chatter. He took my bag and led me through one of the four living areas and up the small flight of stairs that were set off from the kitchen.
In the middle of the room was a large counter that doubled as a bar. In the middle of the bar were freshly cut blossoms floating in a flat silver pan that had been filled with water. The kitchen and dinning room smelled sweet, a sharp contrast to the musk of Havier. I found myself stealing glances at his behind as he went up the staircase. From that first long glance I knew there was no way I could stay in the house with that ass without fucking it, or him fucking me. I didn’t care. I was pissed at my brother for lying about the breakup.
“Is everything OK” he asked.
“Yes. It’s perfect.”
“You seem a little distant” he observed, “sort of like you know who.”
“No. I’m good. I’m not too much like my brother, you know? We may have grown up in the same house, but Patrick was the one that actually lived in it. I was just thinking maybe we could go into the city” but, instead of leaving the house, we watched part of a film called Three Iron and I ended three years of celibacy before my suitcase was unpacked.
Two
The entire attic had been transformed into the master guest suite. The bed was comfortable, but it felt empty. The angled walls gave the room a feeling of closing in. I undressed down to my underwear and settled in but couldn’t rest. When we were kids, Patrick would often sneak into my room and jump on the bed, wrestling me from my sleep. “Hey, looks like someone has got a little midnight wood going on.” I did seem to be hard any time he woke me. In fact I think if I was suddenly awakened to the sound of an explosion, police siren, fire alarm, or Armageddon, I’d get raging hard as soon as my eyes opened.
I laid three for hours after Havier and I said our goodnight, fingering my cock which was sticky from that first session. He’d grown much less talkative after. I assured him that things with my brother would be ok, that I wouldn’t say anything. Deep down Havier didn’t believe that, but wanted to. “I’ve missed you” he said and kissed me before turning away. The guilt was killing him. Havier wasn’t the only boyfriend Patrick had taken from me, he was simply the last. I’d sworn not to ever come around as long as the two of them were together. That had been three years prior, so when Patrick said Havier was gone, I bought into it. I’d wanted the relationship to fail, but feared that they’d live the happily ever after that was reserved for me.
Before my mind started its journey too far down that narrow path, I got up and let in the breeze hoping that there wouldn’t be mosquitos. The night air would cool the sting of his kiss, and that part that wanted to get back at everyone. It was all the magic I’d need. At least that’s what I hoped. Standing on the balcony, the sound of a car pulling into a neighbors drive could be heard along with rustling leaves, and the faint barking of a dog. It was a different kind of piece than what I was used too, I’d grown so comfortable with the sound of car alarms and the occasional gunshot by then that I felt lonely without them. Still over the din of calm I made out a sound on the air that was rather familiar and my anxiety turned to anger, then sadness, then back around to wanting to fuck.
In the shaded covering of the circular garden, Havier sat in the center ring. It sounded as though he was crying. I started to call out, but caught my breath thinking he needed to come to terms with things on his own. He sat that way for minutes without moving. Finally his voice broke “can’t you sleep?”
I walked down instead of answering and sat on the ground in front of him. It took me a few minutes to get outside but it gave me time to think. He spoke slower as though trying to find words that were as lost as the wind. The light from the moon toned down the richness of his complexion. The house pants he wore revealed a few stray pubic hairs and a hint of his shaft tucked in the shadows of the zipperless fly. My pulse quickened and the desire to take advantage of the situation took rise. “I couldn’t sleep” I agreed. “Maybe you and I should have just gone out” I said.
He smiled, though his eyes seemed to be looking off to someplace beyond the garden. I wondered how someone as striking as him could become so vulnerable Another reason I I left was to get away from the habits, the drugs, the men, the games I’d played, but ended up searching out some of those same things when I left. From Sixth Street to Boys Cellar, there was seldom a weekend or place in which Pat didn’t exchange numbers with some guy he’d met at the urinal. Half the time he ended up getting fucked while I sat in the car smoking and keeping an eye on the clock. On rare occasions I ended up dogging (which simply meant, I watched). He’d crawl around naked on all fours at some party so guys could use him as an ash tray, footrest, or boot polisher. The first time I saw that, I got pissed. Pat told me I didn’t respect his being in the life, that I was too closed minded, and “too fucking politically correct about everything!”
I wasn’t feeling politically correct about anything sitting there in front of Havier. When he offered me the drug, I took it.
“The first time I came to Pats, I paid a visit to the medicine cabinet and all this crap came tumbling out. He caught me going through his shit, and was insulted. I wanted to find out, you know his status. He said he was safe but, I” he stopped. “It was all part of the game to him. I felt bad. I didn’t want to hurt you but decided that I deserved how things would turn out. I used to be clean until…”
“I, don’t know what to say.”
“He should have been the one put on the spot. I used to be clean.” he laughed at the obsurdity.
“We all did” I smiled and willed his cock to appear and it did. Patrick wasn’t the first person to offer me the high, but he was the one who succeeded in getting me to try. The drug was taking hold of us both.
“Your brother can be sexy when he’s mad.” Havier caught my wandering eye and placed his hand where I couldn’t see and kept it there continuing his speech. “That night we had great sex, though. I mean really great sex.” He paused and let the sound of his voice and my labored breathing settle back into nothingness. The effect was hypnotic.
“You probably don’t want to hear this” he started speaking a little faster. “That night we flip fucked for 10 hours straight, switching off every time one of us came.”
At that point I couldn’t stop the fullness of my erection, and Havier just kept speaking. The words that were lost came in graphic detail. The wind blew harder. He mentioned that he could feel the hair from my brother’s ass clinging to his cock, “tickling almost” he added. “I stroked long and hard, trying to fuck him harder than he had just fucked me. When it was his turn to ride, he’d slam my ass harder and it was almost as though I could hear the sound of my pucker scrapping against his shaft. Fuck I think sparks must have shot out my hole that night” he laughed and looked a little wild.
By then he had been slowly working his dick to its full veined glory. His prick looked engorged enough to pop. He smirked and left it peeking through his fly. “You like my dick?” I didn’t say anything, I felt that if I spoke in that moment I would just cum. Even the air seemed to be rubbing me right. “This shit is making me as crazy.”
He placed a hand behind my neck and pulled me close and bit down hard on my shoulder. I winched back a little only to have him move forward, place his other hand on my chest and force me onto my back. His legs found either side of my waist positioning his meaty ass hole right at the tip of my cock. My dick felt so hard I thought it could puncture a hole through his clothes and slide into his waiting hole. Havier had natural secretions. He didn’t need lube to be fucked raw. I’d worked halfway into him before he hopped off.
He bent down near my ear, with his butt pointed to the stars. My hand slyly brushed against his ass with the knowledge that he belonged to my brother. “Do you want to own this too?”
“Nah. I just want to fuck it for a minute” I whispered. He let his hand find my cock and tickle the sensitive part of my thigh. He grabbed the head of my dick and clamped down hard with his teeth. “Fuck!” As a reflex, I swatted him away hard.
He looked at me with perched lips and stood up. “Forget it” he said and slumped away down the winding path. I held on to my prick which was harder than it’d been in a while.
“Where are you going? What did I do?”
He looked at me “your dick is bigger than Patrick’s, he’ll know I let you fuck me.”
“That’s crazy! No one can tell something like that.”
“You’ve seen your brother hard? You fuck him too?”
I didn’t know where the conversation was going but figured it didn’t matter because if I changed the conversation to tulips, we would most likely still end up trespassing. “He wont find out” I reassured. “I measured it. We’re the same.”
He looked at me dumbfounded but accepted the logic. The wind kicked up another notch, and Havier let his cloths fall to the ground. I quickly slid mine off and immediately counted every blade of grass, every tiny pebble pressed against my back and told him to straddle me again. I wanted whatever he could give me in that moment.
“You going to let me have that right” I begged and pushed my finger against his open hole. The jerk that that little action caused in him made him grind his ass hard against me while pressing me between his thighs. I’d seen guys move like that before, and saw something of myself in the high. The hurt was good. His head jerked violently. I pushed my finger inside his wet pucker. The result was a groan drawn from some primitive place. He bent down toward my mouth and kissed me hard on the lips. I remember the kiss as being wetter than I liked and a little sloppy, but didn’t care. It wasn’t his tenderness that I’d become fixated with at that moment.
“Please” he said but didn’t finish the thought. Instead he worked his tongue down my neck, to my nipples and started sucking. The pace was lilt, I stroked his bare ass in the dance with the tips of my fingers, feeling the grass and stone everywhere. In the crack of my ass, the sensation made me feel open. The sensation was to let the earth in. He worked from left to right, then back again. A stream of spittle ran down the side of my chest to the part of my back that wasn’t pressed against the ground, then forgotten as his teeth drew all the feeling and focus from my being into his mouth. He had bitten down and had the other tightly locked between a finger vice. I pounded my head back. More pressure. More pressure. Before I got to the point of breaking he stopped and feed on the leakage from my cock.
Several times he tried to take me full on but gagged. The shifting of his throat, an effort to expel my intruding prick felt good. I grabbed the side of his head and pumped my hips hard forcing him to choke several times. Tears welled in his eyes, and his nose started to run, but I kept going. Thrusting repeatedly, I got the same response so I closed my eyes to block out the night sky and just focused on the spot like a target. After a few dozen well timed hammers he tore my hands away from his head coughing and spitting.
My fingers probed his loose hole while he had been coughing. There was a tightening and releasing, knowing how good that would feel stretched around my cock, it throbbed. And so it began.
We went into the house. Havier led me like a dog using my prick as a flesh engorged leash. In the kitchen I slapped him across his right butt cheek and held my hand where it made contact. I drug my palm at an angle, sliding it off his rump as though scraping off filth. The color rushed to the surface.
“Shit! How am I going to hide that” he yelped. I moved to the side as he tried to grab my cock, wanting to squeeze me hard. I could tell because he ground his teeth whenever the intent was to make me hurt.
“Looks like you’ll just have to tell Pat you have a headache for a couple of days, or say what a bitch you really are.” I couldn’t help but laugh. His balls drew close to his body with anticipation. He was close to coming. The rougher it got the more he liked it.
Inside, before going up stairs he cupped his hands under the crushed ice dispenser and gave me a look. I made a dash around the counter bumping the flower arrangement in the center of the room. They almost slid off but didn’t it seemed. He caught me in a hale of tiny crystals that sent waves of cold electricity through me. I bound through the dining room leaping over a chair laughing as I turned the corner fast. I heard shards of ice wiz by my ear hitting the walls. Out of ammo, all he had left were very cold hands and a very dangerous rod.
I circled back around through the living room “too slow” man. “Don’t you know they used to call me speed!” After I said it, I realized I’d stepped back into that role. “I’m going to fuck you all night baby boi.”
“You think? I thought you only wanted it for a minute.”
He hit the breaks when he realized I was heading back toward the ice but it was to late. I grabbed a hand full and caught him as he turned his back. Crack-ack. The pebbles stung and he stopped fast laughing as he hit the floor.
“Ouch. You dirty fucker! That hurt! I should kick your” before he could say it I was on him with the sensation of coldness on his cock and chest. He arched his perfect back and opened up to me right there in the side hallway. I slid into him from behind feeling the rawness of his flesh around the head of my shaft.
“Mmm. That’s good” he said. “Stretch me.”
I froze, concentrated on the twitching of his body which both wanted me inside, but tried to lock me out as though his spincter were I door I could not break down. We kissed and stood. Making our way to the top most floor we both fell onto the bed. He immediately started chewing on my cock which hurt like hell but the erection refused to bow down to the torture.
When I slapped his balls he stopped and started licking my feet then back around to my ass. “You could use a shave baby. But I like it. You’re kinda musty.” Letting me know what he liked made me like it. I’d forgotten why I never wanted to see him again, but that was an argument I’d take up another time. “I don’t know if I can take it all” he smiled, but he did, and the praise he gave made me want him as I had in the past.
I thrust deep and hard, occasionally pulling all the way out to slam back into his hole before it closed. “Stretch it baby” I kept repeating. He gave me more and more for a full turn of the clock then we flipped and I screamed when he tore my ass open. Three years without nothing but my own hands. It was like being a virgin all over again. “Take that pussy a voice was saying” the room kept spinning. My head crashed against something hard. His cum felt as though it burned my insides when he let if fly. It increased the high, I was still hard, horny and intoxicated from the rush, “give me that load, now take mine again.” We went on for several hours.
What was the movie we’d seen? I couldn’t remember. I grabbed a candle that had been burning and let the fire sting his back. Or was that in the film? I can’t recall. The room kept spinning. It was all moving so slow. I counted my strokes when my orgasm started again. How many times could I pump my dick in his ass before I ran out of jizz? I put the fire out in the middle of his back that time. “Fuck yeah baby. I own your ass!” He was wimperring from pleasure and pain I think. The orgasm was so good he returned the favor, throwing me off him before squeezing out the last drop in that delicious place of his. Furiously he tried to work the head of his cock back into me but ended up popping his load on my hole. His fingers dug in deep enough to break the skin on my hips which stung from the salt. The same salt that I could taste in his kiss as he finger fucked his cum into me. A tremor ran through the earth.
The session was irrational. I lay on my back bleeding from the hip, he rubbed the spot where I had burned him. Things became fuzzy. He started to stand after a few moments but I grabbed him and pulled him back toward my cock. “Where are you getting off to? You’re my Bitch now!”
“You’re fucked up” he said, and punched me in the mouth. “That was for burning me.”
The world went black.
Three
I was bemused, slipping back into daylight like a dream. My cock was hard. The shower was running. It was 3. I was in it. How long had I just been standing there? I’d been downstairs helping Havier clean up the kitchen. Turns out, we had knocked over the center piece spilling water and blossoms all over the floor. The ice despencer had been broken. I’d gone back upstairs to shower, shave and you know the drill, dress, think, come down. Havier was terribly upset by then. How would he explain the broken fridge, the fact that I was there, the burn on his back, my swollen cheek.
When Patrick got home he was so glad to see me that he didn’t even notice Havier’s sour mood. In fact he was going on and on about his business trip.
“You look well bro. But I see your getting a little belly” he said ignoring the puffiness on the side of my face.
I returned the sentiment and saw just how much time had passed. Patrick didn’t have the same glow that I’d remembered. “Looks like you might be getting a little too much Texas sun yourself, or have those Arbonne products gone bad on you?” The usual competition. We talked like that for a while in the sunroom which faced the hills. There was a fireplace with an eight point buck that Patrick shot in hill country. I found it a rather crude display, but it was the character of the room. It was as out of place as we all had come to be.
“I wanted to make this my trophy den, but Havier didn’t like that idea. Still I put it on him good enough to let me add at least one from the hunt. Ain’t that right sweety!”
“Poor Bambi” I muttered.
Havier left the room to get more drinks.
“He’s kinda quiet tonight” Patrick started “I realized things might be a little awkward between the two of you, but I didn’t know how else to get you two together. Though I wished you would have called and let me know you were coming.”
“Pat. Havier and I are fine. We just watched a DVD and chilled. He misses you is all” I lied.
“Well. That’s good. I want to ask you something.” Before he could get to what he wanted to say Havier came back into the room with our beers.
“No more for you?”
“I’m going to meditate in the garden for a bit. I told Emanuel he could take the copy of Fevreblau. I’ll order you another from Amazon.”
“That’s fine. I was going to ask you to take some of the books if you wanted” Patrick said looking from Havier back to me. Havier left the room and Patrick leaned in close and waited for the sound of a door to close before he started talking.
“You and I need to talk.”
I told him there was nothing to talk about, and that we were already talking. The fact that he and Havier ended up together was just the course of things. “Manny” he offered “just listen to me. I was wrong. We have been fucking up with each other since we were kids, but now the stakes are getting too high.” I looked as if I didn’t know what he was talking about.
“Are you clean” he asked. The question made me angry. Truth was I’d been clean for about three months, but couldn’t and didn’t want to stop myself when Havier made the offer. “All this stuff. We’ve got to stop it.”
“What are you talking about” I demanded. “Stop what?” The anger grew. “You were fucking Havier before I even had a chance to kiss him goodnight practically, that’s normal for you. You’ve taken everything I ever wanted! Why stop?”
“I’m trying to say, I guess what I want to say is can we start over?” My eyebrows curled up toward my scalp in disbelief. I laughed.
“What the hell is wrong with you? I should be asking you the same question then? Are you clean? Because it sounds like you’ve got life fucked”
“No. I’m not, and I’m sorry that I ever got you started on it. The problem is that Havier is hooked but he takes it too far.”
The place my brother was trying to get was crazy. I didn’t want an apology, I wanted my esteem back. But he had taken that too, or I had given it up to the pipe, a pill, the drink, or a strange dick up the ass.
“We’ve got to fix things between us” he went on. “I’ve been seeing someone.”
“Oh really. Does Havier know?”
“Shut up. That’s not what I’m talking about.” I looked at him as though my face were a mask without expression. Knowing the ways of Patrick, he knew what my sullen look meant. I didn’t believe him, but it didn’t matter. “I love Havier.” It was meant to be reassuring, and I did believe he loved Havier. Three years had been spent trying to get away from that fact only to have it staring me in the face in the form of a dear with plastic eyes. Patrick never talked about stuff, we didn’t do that, at least not with each other so he was telling me he was in a program.
“That’s nice” I said “good for you.”
“No. It’s not. Havier is loyal to me, but I think. Well I think if he had the chance to do it over, he’d pick you.” He isn’t that loyal I almost added.
“I don’t like where this is going” I stood up. Patrick stepped over and held me by my shoulders.
“I love Havier” he said again to which I was thinking, yes we’ve already established that. “I really love him” he said moving closer to me so that our lips almost touched. The sky seemed to flicker as though on cue from the shadow of a plane overhead or something. I don’t know. A touch of ‘Almost’ became a moment of the past. I tensed for a moment but gave in. For the first time I tasted my brothers tongue kiss as our lips touched. We became aroused. His cock pressed against my own and there was a kind of heat between us that I had never felt. “But,” he continued “I’m in love with you. I always have been. That’s our problem.”
“What the fuck is that?”
“That’s me saying that we have issues Emanuel, we always have and always will unless we can work through them…”
“Guys. What’s going on?” The question froze us like two jocks caught mastergating in the shower. Should they run or pretend it was nothing?
“Nothing. We were just having a discussion. Go to bed Havier.” The tone he took was that of the master. The role of him being in the life had changed. It was Havier who crawled and groveled to be used as a foot rest and human ashtray.
Havier looked at me then back at Patrick said yes sir and turned away. The exit was loaded in defeat. We stood there in silence until Havier was gone. It was odd I realized that I’d long lost count of how many times I didn’t know what to say to Patrick. So I said something stupid.
“Havier and I fucked last night!”
Four: Prelude
I’d waited for him for about six to eight minutes while thumbing through a local paper gay press.” Nothing in it caught my eye, nothing news worthy, nothing so shocking that I was compelled to pick it up. It just happened to be the best way to pass the time before meeting him, before hearing his voice in person for the first time and shaking his hand only to later want that hand all over my body.
Havier approached me from the left entrance of the train station recognizing me by the ‘Garageband.com’ shirt I said I’d wear. He said hello with a confidence free of doubt and fear of blunder. I liked that. On his face he wore a smile that peered through tinted glasses, a lime green T-shirt that eluded to his form, khaki shorts and sandals.
We shared a sandwich at a little coffee dive that can be found inside bookstore chains across the country – only we made that one special. He’d cut a couple of bites for me as we chatted about art, and the profoundness of life. We gave up nothing overtly sexually during those short moments, but opted to stroll and fumble through periodicals while interchanging ideas of what to do next. It was decided that we’d catch a movie so I suggested “Y Tu Madre Tambien” – which is roughly translated as ‘yo mama.’ We both enjoyed it profusely, hmmm well maybe not that, but the company made it the best film of the year.
We laughed, we rubbed elbows, we sat close and whispered emotional despair and joy of what we were seeing. The film gave us up to the night. We returned to the streets following down a circular path of escalators to the first floor then out the exit and onto the walk sidling through droplets of rain. Non of those drops hit us, instead they fell around us in soft reflective pools. Asphalt beneath. The air was cool and drew him closer to me contemplating where our steps would lead as I loaned him my invisible jacket.
“You are such a gentleman,” he said.
After a few long city blocks we decided to go into Javacha for a little something to drink. I got a banana chocolate smoothie, and he tried bubble tea. I told him to stay away from the jasmine cause the fragrance reminded me of toilet paper. He laughed the most joyous sound I had ever heard.
Toward the front there were love seats by the windows, magazines to read, and a place to rest weary feet. Though uncertain of all things, I was still trying to summize his body language to know for sure if he was ‘into me’ or not. I didn’t want to jump to conclusions only to be completely wrong. We were leaning in close to each other chatting and laughing, weaving our tales. The urge I’d felt to kiss him had grown tremendously. The seed had been planted back during the movie I think, or maybe well before, from that first or second email a month prior, from that first or second phone conversation two weeks earlier. Never the less, he graced my hand with his and it felt as though that was the right hand. From one touch, it was the right hand to touch mine. Never had that thought before entered my mind, and it’s silly I know but I couldn’t have dreamed him any better.
I could say for the first time in my life I had the perfect date, right down to the goodnight kiss.
It was time for me to go:
We both had to get up early the next day for work. We shuffled our way back along the empty destination paths. No one else mattered. If we passed others like ourselves I didn’t notice, he was all that I saw. My body learned the way he flirted, brushing his shoulder to mine as we walked, or gently reaching up to massage them with perfect fingers. His hands are that of an artist, a painter, a chef, a craftsman, and gardener all rolled into one. I suppose we complimented each other.
We are going to handle this like lesbians, I thought.
Around 11:25 we staggered to nervously face each other. Two school boys knowing what to do but not knowing how to start.
“I was trying to figure out how to say goodbye,” he said.
‘Yeah, me too.”
With that, and a moment plus we hugged and he gave forth his lips to meet my own for the first time. I was only expecting a quick little smack and then move on. He needed to go North, and I South. I was afraid of what people would think, or what people would do. But he kissed me instead, and in doing so the fear vanquished and no one broke the spell. He kissed me like he meant it. He kissed me like I wanted him to before we’d ever met, like the one in a dream fast forwarding through time in which you can’t wait to get to the good part. Well, I hoped that was my good part.
The following night we would talk on the phone for almost three hours.
Our embrace unfolded. “Goodbye.”
‘Goodnight’ I said.
He pretended to do sign language and we both had grins on our faces and a glow about our persons. With his eye he followed my hand into my pocket as I pulled out my cell phone to call him.
‘Hey’ I said, ‘thanks for a great night’ he smiled, said the same and waved as got into a cab.
Five
That meeting seemed so far from gone. It had fluttered like a glass butterfly and broken into pieces when I tried to touch its wings. Too delicate to capture. All of that came back to me as I uttered the words again. “Havier and I fucked last night.”
“I heard you the first time.” Patrick went to bed angry. He and Havier fought for three hours before they settled down. He was right. We had things to work through. I lay there that night until the fighting stopped thinking about what all of it meant. The urge to get high dwelled in the corner of my mind but I didn’t. The three months I’d been cleaned turned to six, then thirty-six in my mind, until I lost count. No more.
I sat at the top of the stairs listening to the slow motion sound of bed springs as Patrick banged away at the prize he owned. Havier seemed to have been putting on a show, saying the same things he said with me only louder. I fingered the cream that seeped from my hard-on waiting for my turn.
In the middle of the night, Havier came to my room after Patrick passed out just like I hoped. We made love in silence. The next day he was gone and Patrick and I were left to work out the prelude to a kiss that had started three years prior.