He leads me to the bathroom.
It’s as clinical as the rest of the place, white tile, nothing on the counters except a single bottle of body wash.
He turns on the water, waits for it to heat, then strips off the rest of his clothes.
I follow suit, folding my stuff into a neat pile because I don’t know what else to do.
In the shower, he’s even more efficient. He washes me, hands moving over my shoulders, my chest, down my back, around my ass.
Every touch is deliberate, a checklist, but I let him.
When he presses against me, hard again, I turn and let him push me against the tile.
He jerks himself with one hand while the other grips my hip hard enough to leave half-moon indentations from his nails.
His breath comes in short, controlled bursts against my neck, steam rising between our bodies in the shower's heat.
It takes less than a minute before he grunts, a single, restrained sound and shudders against me, his come hitting the shower floor in thick white ropes that swirl toward the drain in lazy spirals.
He pulls me close, water running over both of us, and for a second I think he’s going to say something real.
But he just kisses my neck, his lips leaving a cold spot when they pull away, then reaches behind me to shut off the tap with a decisive twist that makes the pipes groan once before falling silent.
We towel off in silence. I follow him back to the living room, where he pours another two drinks, hands me one.
He sits next to me, leans back, eyes closed.
After a minute, he says, “You can crash here if you want. I’ve got an early morning, but you can take the couch.”
I almost ask about the bed, but I don’t. I just nod.
He disappears into the bedroom, closes the door behind him.
I sit on the couch, naked except for the throw blanket, and sip the whiskey, letting it burn all the way down.
My skin is buzzing, every nerve lit up, but inside, it’s quiet. A dead channel.
I stare at the ceiling, at the perfect angles of the lighting, and wonder if this is what it’s supposed to feel like.
I think about Darius, about Alki Beach, about the way his hand trembled on my neck, about how careful he was, about how he waited for me to catch up, about how he never took more than I was willing to give.
I think about how it felt to be wanted, not just for what I could give, but for the empty space I left behind.
I finish the drink, curl up on the couch, and close my eyes.
When I wake, the sun is bleeding in through the glass, and the world is exactly the same.
———
The couch is not built for sleeping.
I wake with my neck at a right angle to my body, and for a second, I don’t remember where I am.
The city’s laid out beneath the floor-to-ceiling windows, clouds stacked like bricks on the horizon.
The smell of fresh coffee is so strong it hurts.
I sit up, scrub my hands over my face, and try to get my bearings.
