“I’m sorry, cucciolo. If it were up to me, I’d keep you forever—you have to know that. But I want you to live more than I want you for myself.”
“Then you’re being selfish,” you said bitterly. “Because I’d rather be with you.”
You ground against me until you came, crying out my name in pain and frustration. Your seed was lost to the ocean, as you would soon be lost to me.
I didn’t knowwho cried or came more in those last three days. I’d lost count of both. It was a strange dance we embarked upon—all of the emotions a human heart was capable of rendering surfaced in our last days together, as we climbed to the shared bliss of bodily communion only to tumble back down into misery and gloom.
Anger, bitterness, resentment, you didn’t hold back. You lashed out at me at every turn. I was condescending and selfish and delusional. I was messing with your head and abandoning you just like your father. I got off on seeing you in pain and making you suffer. Of course, it hurt me, but I wouldn’t contradict you, which only made you more furious, because according to you, you weren’t even worthy of an argument. You wanted to fight me, even though in my mind, we were on the same side—that of keeping you alive and safe.
I couldn’t reason with you in words, and you wouldn’t let me seduce you into a relaxed state of being, so I resorted to exhausting you physically. Even in your anger and rage, you submitted to me. On your hands and knees, against the wall, strapped down, and strung up. You tested me, Orlando, even as I consumed you. I wished to exorcise every ill feeling you harbored toward me and leave you with a clean and empty slate.
You tried a few more times to convince me to stay, but seeing it was futile, resolved to being as close as physically possible. You ate while sitting in my lap and made me accompany you to the bathroom, terrified I might vanish if you let me out of your sight for even a second.
I promised you until Sunday, which then extended into Monday at sunrise. I had to be firm, even though my heart was breaking. By the end, you were sitting on the beach beside me, tears flowing freely down your face. I kissed your wet cheeks and then your mouth. I told you I was so happy to have met you. You only sniffed and stared at the water, trying to be brave.
The last thing I did was pull your head to my chest and bury my nose in your curls. This was the scent I would carry with me. You gripped me tightly and tried one more time to beg me not to go, but I couldn’t oblige you. Your life was too precious.Youwere too precious to me, so I left you there on the beach in Xavier’s arms and swore to myself I’d never return.
33
Orlando
Iguess some part of me didn’t think you’d actually follow through. You’d threatened to leave me before, but you’d always come back. But this time felt different. We were too close. Tooessentialto each other. At least, you were to me. I’d begun to doubt my own importance to you.
I knew exactly the moment you left me in Xavier’s stiff and unfamiliar arms.
I tore myself away as Xavier only stared at me with pity. The sun had fully risen over the horizon and was blinding me with its brilliance. Just like you. I was so dazzled by you that it was too late to realize you’d burned me.
“Did you and Henri have a disagreement?” Xavier asked gently. He didn’t usually ask too many questions about our relationship. He seemed to just… know things.
“He said he’s leaving me for good,” I said quietly and dug my battered toes into the sand. The ground was damp, still with the chill of a dewy morning. The cold seeped in through my feet and climbed into my bones where it settled.
“It’s probably to protect you,” Xavier said, still in his soft, soothing voice. But it pissed me off that he immediately took your side.
“Yeah, well, demons know best, don’t they?” I said scornfully and rubbed at my still-dripping eyes.
“Sometimes they do, Orlando. It’s going to hurt for a while,” Xavier said with the experience of a man who’d lived through this kind of pain, “but you need to be even more vigilant than ever about the choices you make right now. These decisions will have consequences that will last your entire lifetime and maybe even beyond.”
That’s one thing you and Xavier were both good at, speaking to me in riddles like fucking Yoda. A lot of lectures and not a lot of listening. Even though my anger was misplaced, Xavier was kind of being a condescending ass.
“Yeah, well.” I stood and brushed the sand off my pants. “I guess this is our breakup as well.”
Xavier glanced up at me while shielding his eyes from the sun. I knew I wasn’t looking at you right then, but damn if it wasn’t painful all the same.
“I hope you won’t discard our friendship so easily,” Xavier said. “I’ve enjoyed getting to know you. I would miss you terribly.”
“We’ll still be friends, Xavier,” I said tiredly. I was at the end of my rope. After the week we’d had—between all of the fucking and fighting—my body and mind were completely tapped out. “It’s just that every time I look at you, I see him.”
Xavier nodded and stood to kiss my cheek goodbye. “Keep your key. You’re welcome in my home any time. And I’d love for you to drop in for dinner. Someone has to make sure you’re eating.”
I clapped him on the back but avoided looking at his face, because I didn’t want to cry anymore. I guess I should be grateful that in our breakup, I got to keep all of our friends.
The first fewweeks felt like a cliché of a bad breakup montage, where I ate too much junk food, cried until there was snot dripping down my face, and unless it was for work, barely showered or got out of bed. Bruno was a good friend to me during that time. We watched a lot of trash TV. The porn always made me sad because it looked so fake and put-on, and I knew now what sex was supposed to be like. You’d shown me the truth of what two bodies could do for each other, and I knew I’d never find another lover like you in my lifetime.
Bruno, in his teasing-not-teasing way, offered more than once to blow me, if only to lift my spirits. It was a generous offer, but I was hurting too bad. I needed my best friend, not some easy rebound I could treat like shit and then discard later. I wasn’t going to use Bruno as a cum bucket.
It wasn’t very long after our breakup before I began calling for you. I tried holding out at first, because I didn’t want to give you the satisfaction of knowing just how much I missed you, but I soon realized I was only punishing myself.
My first attempt was only a whisper, your name murmured under my breath while lying in bed. Then it was a moan that escaped me by accident while I masturbated in the tub. A shout in frustration at the end of my run—it was Sunday that time. Sundays were always the hardest.
