Page 65 of The Invisible Roommate

Of course with you! he wanted to shout. Did Gerard not know how amazing he was? He was fit and sweet and intelligent and talented, and he’d bought a pair of crappy walkie-talkies just so they could keep in touch when they weren’t in the apartment together and agreed to write a song with him that might never get performed. Emory wanted to make Gerard feel good, so good that they needed to invent a word beyond pleasure to describe the physiological sensations he’d give him.

But once again, he was getting way ahead of himself.

The fact remained that he was a virgin, a complete novice when it came to sex, so he needed to learn from a patient teacher. Gerard had already proven himself to be one with the guitar. Perhaps Emory could turn Gerard’s body into a fretboard and let his fingers play with something other than strings. He fantasized about the sounds Gerard would make.

“Great, we can have sex,” Gerard said as if they’d just inked a lucrative business deal.

“We can?” Emory asked, sort of stunned.

“I want to,” Gerard said. “Once we finish the song.”

There it was. The dangled carrot snatched right back out of the rabbit enclosure. “Once we finish the song?” Emory swallowed thickly.

Gerard honked out a laugh. “Sex, drugs, and rock and roll is a cliché in my industry for a reason. They’re motivators. I write pop music, not rock and roll, and I don’t do drugs, so that leaves…”

“Sex.” Emory salivated around the word.

“Which we can have when the song is finished,” Gerard said.

“How will we know when it’s finished?” Emory asked, but in truth, it sounded more like a needy, yearnful whine.

“Trust me,” Gerard said with a mischievous smile, “we’ll know.”

30Gerard

The stage was almost set.

The final candle was lit. Music was on. A box of condoms specially ordered from Jeanie at her store after he’d struck out at the pharmacy sat open on the bedside table.

Three days later, they’d finished the song. Emory worked like a dog to get it done. Gerard knew the incentive of sex was strong, but he hadn’t anticipated how strong. Emory wore blinders to the world, his sole purpose in life distilled into writing the catchiest song about science there ever was. Granted, he didn’t have much competition, but Gerard had high standards.

Earlier, Gerard had cleared a space, dimmed the lights, and made Emory perform the song for him. “Do I have to?” Emory had whined with Pascal slung around his torso.

“We’re not done until you do,” Gerard said.

Even though Emory’s singing was pitchy and his performance lacked any kind of bravado, the song itself had legs. Long legs that could strut down the runways of your mind and leave a lasting impression, like some of the couture pieces Gerard had seen at New York Fashion Week.

With models on the mind, Gerard tried to conjure an image of the man he was about to have sex with. From their make outs, he had a sense of Emory’s height (tall), his body type (lean), and the length and feel of his hair (long and silky). Except for ice-blue eyes and porcelain skin, the details were left up to Gerard’s imagination.

Did Emory have freckles on his nose? A birthmark on his hip? Were his eyelashes long and fair or short and dark?

While it remained true that he didn’t quite care what Emory looked like, especially since he’d spent a long time in such an image-obsessed industry, he couldn’t entirely quiet his curiosity.

When the bathroom door rasped open, Emory’s shape appeared backlit and surrounded by the residual shower steam crowding out the door. The air was perfumed with the scents of eucalyptus and mint. Despite not seeing Emory’s naked form, his known nakedness was enough to make Gerard’s dick jump to attention.

“Where do you want me?” Emory asked, which made Gerard laugh.

Glancing around, it almost looked like they were about to film a music video. An X-rated music video. All they needed were red silk sheets and some blaring saxophone. In wanting to make Emory comfortable, he’d perhaps overestimated his powers of set dressing. “I did too much,” Gerard said.

“It looks nice,” Emory said in a breathy voice Gerard had not heard from him before.

In the dim light, Gerard paid special attention to the creaks of the floorboards to track Emory’s barefooted steps on his way to the bed. “I assume we’ll start here?” Emory asked before sitting down.

Gerard bit back another laugh. The last thing he needed was to poke a pin in Emory’s resolve. They both wanted this, and even though he worried he’d somehow ruin Emory’s first time, he wasn’t going to back out now. Importance clung to Emory’s freshly washed skin.

Perched on the edge of the bed, their knees lightly brushing, Gerard said, “If something doesn’t feel good, tell me. If you want to stop, say so. We’ll stop. There won’t be any questions. If we go too far or anything feels too much, you should—”

“Tell you,” Emory interrupted. “I got it. I don’t have any qualms about making my dislikes known.”