“Psh, no. This is a younger guy. They might be related, though. I think Dad said something like that.”
“Well, in any case, I don’t think you look like anyone I’ve seen before,” Makai stated shyly. Then he looked away. “But I do like what I see.”
Emil, feeling self-conscious, sipped from his glass and then twisted it round and round in his hands. Sadly that only brought his own attention to his fingers, and he sighed. “Okay, so, sex.”
Makai nodded and glanced at him. “I’ll start.” He thought for a moment before starting. “Like I said, I’ve never been with a guy in a consensual way. There’s a lot of the good stuff I’ve never done.” He licked his lips nervously. “But the second rape, the one that I don’t remember much about… I don’t know what they did. I didn’t want to know, either. It left some damage. Enough that the doctors said I should never try anal even if I wanted to. Something about not being able to have anything in me without serious threat of permanent injuries.”
Emil felt sadness and rage, and they mixed with the mild spacey feeling of the alcohol. He was crying before he knew it. “That’s…. That’s horrible, Makai.”
“When I’ve thought about it, like whether I’d want to bottom or not, it’s….” He sighed and looked out of the window instead of at Emil. “I wish I could’ve chosen to, you know. But it’s bad enough to have to watch what I eat too.”
Emil bit his lip. “I hate that they did that to you,” he said finally when he could be sure he wouldn’t scream.
“Yeah…. But if topping is something—”
“Hey, no.” Emil raised his hand. “There’s no way for me to know, but even if it was, I would never hold something like that against you.”
Makai nodded slowly. “I just thought you should know. Before we got to that point.” Then he looked at Emil with wide eyes. “I don’t mean I’m expecting anything or that we have to—”
“I know,” Emil replied, smiling tightly. “I know.”
Mouse came to check them out on her way to the litterbox, and when she got back out of the utility space, the stench following her was enough to make Emil gag.
“Holy hell, cat, what have you eaten?” Makai asked, coughing as he got up to clean after her.
“And why didn’t you cover it. Are you trying to suffocate us?” Emil whined and went to the door to open it for some clean air. “Jesus fuck,” he muttered.
Once Makai had cleaned the litterbox, he collected all the trash in the house to take out to the trash can.
“Can you refresh our drinks? We could go out for a while?” he asked when Emil gave him room to get out of the house.
“Sure.” Emil filled their drinks, hoping he got the amounts of whiskey and Coke right, and took the glasses to where Makai was waiting for him in the yard.
It struck him then that it was only afternoon. “Why do I feel all weird that it’s not evening?” he asked Makai.
“I don’t know. Time moves differently when you talk about the heavy shit, maybe?”
Emil hummed. He could remember sitting in Evy’s home office and being surprised that their time was up. “I guess so.”
They walked down to the dock, which was still unfinished.
“I wish I could finish this before Saturday,” Makai said wistfully.
“I could help, maybe?” Emil suggested. “I mean, I’ve helped Dad with some renovation stuff a few times.”
“Really?” Makai looked pleased for the offer.
“Yeah. We’ll figure out a good day for it. It’s Wednesday now, so there’s a couple of days.”
“Great. I want to build the bench and bolt it in too. There’s still a couple of boards I need to replace and then make the bench and a railing. It’s probably faster with another set of hands helping me.”
“They aren’t much, but they work.” Emil held out his free hand and showed Makai his battered fingers.
“What happened?”
Emil gestured toward the rocks on the shore, and they sat down, not quite side by side, but the distance made it all comfortable and calming instead of stifling.
“The woman, she… she tried to rape me at first. But she couldn’t get me hard, which she took out on me by hitting me, and I think the starving was part of that too. She couldn’t rape me that way, so what she did was….” Emil swallowed hard against the bile rising in his throat and tried to hold his hands still. “She told the men that I should be tied to this bed that was there so I wouldn’t run. The men were going somewhere, move the drugs or something, and they left her with me with just one guy outside to guard the place.” His hands started to shake enough for Makai to reach over for his glass.
