Chapter 17 Reece #2
We get on the bed. I am over him because he has put me there.
He has lain back and pulled me on top of him with his hand on my hip, and he has done it without ceremony, the way you arrange a thing you have already decided how to arrange.
He is on his back. I am between his legs.
He is in jeans still and so am I and I can feel him hard against me through both of them and he can feel me and neither of us is moving for a second.
“Hi,” I say.
“Hi.”
“Griffin.”
“Yeah.”
“I haven’t done this in two years.”
“Either way?”
“Either way.”
He waits. He is good at waiting. He is letting me have whatever this is.
“I don’t know if I…“
“Reed.”
“What.”
“Your body knows what to do. I am not worried about your body.”
“Okay.”
“Are you worried about your body.”
I check. I check the way you check for an injury you have learned to walk on, pressing different places to see what hurts. Nothing hurts. My body, it turns out, is fine. My body is the part of me that has been waiting.
“No.”
“Okay.”
He pulls me down. He kisses me. His hand goes between us and undoes my belt.
He undoes my jeans. He gets his hand inside and around me.
The sound I make is not a sound I planned to make.
He has not let go of my mouth. He is kissing me through it.
His thumb moves over the head of my cock and my hips go forward without me telling them to.
He makes a sound into my mouth. A small one, low, satisfied, like he is finding out a thing he wanted to find out.
“Yeah,” he says against my mouth. “Yeah.”
“Griffin.”
“Get the rest off.”
I get the rest of my clothes off. I get them off without making a thing of it.
He gets his off too. He has decided we are going to do this and the clothes are going to be off because they need to be off.
He is not performing for me. He is preparing the room for what he has decided is going to happen.
He lies back. I look at him. Because I get to. I’m over him on his bed in the lamp light and he is naked and looking back at me. His hand on my thigh. His cock against his stomach. I haven’t seen him like this in two years. He’s letting me see him.
“Stop staring,” he says. Soft.
“No.”
“Reed.”
“Give me a second.”
He gives me a second. He gives me the second and then he reaches over to the side table.
He gets the lube and the condom and puts them on the bed next to my hand.
He has been planning. I see it. I don’t say so.
He sees that I see it. We don’t need to talk about it.
We are in agreement that he planned this.
“Have you,” he says.
“What.”
“Done this. With anyone. In the two years.”
“No.”
“Okay.”
“You?”
He looks at me.
“Once.”
The word lands. I had not asked. He is telling me anyway.
I sit with it. I do not let my face do anything.
There is a part of me that wants to count back.
Last spring, where was I last spring, what was I doing the night he was doing this.
I do not let that part of me have the floor.
He is telling me. He has decided to tell me. The least I can do is let him.
“Okay,” I say.
“It was bad.”
“Okay.”
“I am telling you because I do not want there to be a thing you find out later.”
“I know.”
“It was a person from my cohort, last spring, and it was once, and it was bad, and we did not do it again.”
“Okay.”
“Are you mad.”
“No.”
“Reed.”
“I’m not mad. Griffin. You thought I was dead. There was no rule you broke. There was no thing for you to be…“
“I know. I am still telling you.”
I look at him. He needs me to receive this and not absolve it. The two are different. I have been confusing them all my life and I am not going to do it tonight.
“Okay,” I say.
“Okay.”
He pulls me down. He kisses me. The kiss is harder this time, like he is putting the conversation away. He gets his hand on me again. I am hard against his palm. He strokes me twice, slow. I have to put my forehead against his shoulder for a second.
“Okay,” he says. “Okay. Slow. I know.”
“Yeah.”
“Take your time.”
“Yeah.”
I get the lube. I get my hand wet. I put my hand between his legs.
He’s making a sound — the one he used to make, the one I’d been telling myself I’d remembered wrong.
It’s exactly the way I remembered. He makes it when my finger is in him.
His hand grips my shoulder. His eyes close.
His mouth opens against the side of my neck.
I have to stop for a second and breathe because the sound is too much.
“Don’t stop.”
“I’m not. I just…“
“Don’t stop, Reed.”
“Okay.”
I keep going. I add a second finger. He arches in a way I remember and had been telling myself I’d remembered wrong. His back coming up off the bed in a small specific curve, his head pressing back into the pillow, his hand finding mine on his hip and gripping it. He doesn’t let go.
“More,” he says.
“Are you…“
“More. Reed. I have been thinking about this for a week.”
“Okay.”
I add the third. I take my time. I take my time because I always have, and because I know, I know from before, my body knows, that he likes it.
He likes the slow. He likes when I make him wait.
His breathing is going faster. His hips push down into my hand without him deciding.
He is not quiet about it. He is making the sounds.
“Now,” he says.
“Yes?”
“Now. Reed. Now.”
I get the condom on with hands that aren’t quite steady, get more lube, move up over him, and stop — because I want to look at him.
He is on his back, his chest moving fast, his hair messy, his mouth open.
One hand is on my hip; the other is fisted in the sheet.
He is the version of him I have not seen in two years. He is here. He is letting me see him.
“Reed.”
“Yeah.”
“I am asking you to do this. So we both know I am asking.”
I hear what he is doing. He is making a record. He is putting the asking on top of the doing so that later, in whatever apartment, in whatever year, he can come back to this and find the moment he asked.
“Okay,” I say.
“Fuck me.”
“Yes.”
“Now. Please.”
I push in. I push in slow because my body knows to and because his body needs me to. He makes a sound that is not the same sound he was making before. This one is lower, longer. He closes his eyes. I stop with just the head in.
“Okay?”
“Yes. Yes. Keep going.”
“Tell me if…“
“I’ll tell you. Reed. Keep going.”
I keep going. I push the rest of the way in, slow, watching his face.
His mouth opens. His hand on my hip tightens.
When I am all the way in he makes the sound, the small one, the oh one, the one that used to make me.
The one that has always made me. I have to hold still for a second. I hold still. He opens his eyes.
“Hi,” he says.
“Hi.”
“Move.”
I move. I move slow. He wraps his legs around me. His hand goes from my hip to the back of my neck and stays there. He pulls me down. He puts his mouth against the side of my face, not kissing, just there, his mouth open against my temple, his breath against my skin, and he says, “Yeah.”
He says it the way he used to say it.
I lose a second. I lose a second because the yeah is something I had been telling myself I had remembered wrong, the same way I had been telling myself about the sound, and I had not remembered it wrong.
The yeah is in my ear and his hand is on my neck and I am inside him and I have to stop moving because my whole body is doing something I cannot control.
“Reed.”
“Give me a second.”
“Are you…“
“I’m not. I am not coming. Just. Give me a second.”
“Okay.”
He waits. With his legs around me and his hand on my neck and his mouth against my temple.
He doesn’t push. He doesn’t move. He waits the way he has waited the whole time I’ve known him — the thing he’s best at.
Griffin, the patient one, the one who lets the silence go on until the silence is the answer.
I breathe. I start moving again. I move slow and then I move less slow.
He’s making sounds. I’m making sounds. His hand is on the back of my neck the whole time.
The whole time he’s saying yeah and Reed and yeah.
He isn’t saying it for me. He’s saying it for himself, confirming what he’s feeling.
I’m the one inside him and the one hearing it.
The most generous thing he’s done for me in two years.
I get a hand between us. I get my hand on him and he says, “God,” and his hips come up. He’s fucking himself between my hand and my cock. He’s taken over the rhythm. He’s decided. I’m not driving anymore. He’s doing this on his own. I’m the one being used by him to do it. That’s what does it.
“Griffin.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m going to…“
“Come on.”
“You first.”
“Reed.”
“Come on. You first. I want to see. Come on, baby.”
He stops. Just for a second. His whole body goes still around me and his eyes find mine.
There is a half-second where he is not under me and not over me and not anywhere.
He is somewhere I do not have access to.
I have known him for ten years and I have not been to this place.
He is the only one in it. I hold still. I let him have it.
I am not going to be the one who pulls him back.
Then he comes back. His eyes are wet, and I do not know if he is going to cry or come.
He looks at me. He looks at me and his face works, the eyes-doing-the-work thing.
Then his face stops. His face just lets it happen.
He comes in my hand without breaking eye contact, his whole body doing the release, his mouth open, his hand on my neck.
He comes saying my name. Reed. I watch him. I watch him.
I come a few seconds after he does, with my forehead pressed against his and his hand still on my neck. His other hand finds mine on the bed and grips it. I make a sound I have not made in two years. He says into my mouth, “Yeah. Yeah.”
I collapse. I collapse onto him. He takes my weight. His hand stays on the back of my neck. We breathe.
Later. I have pulled out. I have dealt with the condom. I have come back. I am lying on my side facing him and he is on his back and his eyes are closed and he is breathing slow and my hand is on his chest and his hand is over mine.
“Hey,” I say.
“Hey.”
“You okay.”
“Yes.”
“Yes?”
“Yes, Reed. I am yes. I am very okay.”
“Okay.”
He turns his head. He looks at me. His face is open in a way I have not seen it be open in two years. He is letting me have his face.
“Are you okay,” he says.
“Yes.”
“Yes?”
“Yes. Yeah.”
“Okay.”
We lie there.
“Griffin.”
“Yeah.”
“Thank you for asking.”
“For what.”
“For asking. What I wanted. Tonight. Which way.”
He looks at me.
“You think I was going to assume.”
“I think you’ve been deciding things. For a month. You could have decided this too. I’m thanking you for not.”
He is quiet for a second. I watch him think. He does not make a face when he is thinking. The eyes do the work and the rest of him stays still. I have always loved him in this stillness. I haven’t been allowed to for two years. I’m loving him in it now and he doesn’t know I’m doing it.
“I’m not going to assume anything with you,” he says.
“Not now. Not with this. I’ve been deciding things because somebody had to, and you weren’t in a position to.
This is different. What we just did is different.
I don’t want to be the only person deciding what we do here.
I didn’t want to fuck you tonight without knowing whether you wanted to fuck me. ”
“Okay.”
“Are you…“
“What.”
“Is there. What about next time.”
“What about it.”
“What do you want next time.”
I look at him. The question is the easiest one he has asked me all night. I have known the answer to it for two years.
“I want both. I want what we did tonight and I want to do it the other way too. Sometimes.”
“Okay.”
“Like before.”
“Like before.”
“Yeah.”
“Okay.”
“And we figure it out.”
“And we figure it out.”
He puts his hand on my face. He looks at me. His eyes are doing a thing they have not done all night, which is that they are wet. They are not crying. They are just wet. He is letting me see them be wet.
“Okay,” he says.
“Okay.”
He closes his eyes. We lie there.
I leave at one in the morning.
I do not want to leave. He doesn’t ask me to. I leave because I’m the one who knows I should. The one who’s not supposed to be here. The longer I stay the more this becomes a thing — and the more it becomes a thing, the more I’m letting it become one without having called Mendez.
And I am still not going to call Mendez tonight. I have known that since I started walking over here. I am making the decision knowing what it means.
He walks me to the door. He puts his hand on the side of my face. He kisses me, brief.
“Tuesday,” he says.
“Tuesday.”
“At seminar.”
“Yes.”
“And before.”
“Okay.”
I leave. I close the door behind me. I go down the stairs.
I walk home in the cold. I do not check over my shoulder the whole way back.
I notice this when I am unlocking my own door.
I get home. I sit on the couch. I am sore and tired and my mouth still feels like his.
I sit on the couch in my coat for a long time.
He’s decided he’s going to have me. He’s decided.
But he asked. Asked which way. Asked if I wanted to.
Asked again with my legs around him and his cock in his hand.
He’s asking now in a way he wasn’t a month ago.
Something I’m going to have to think about.
I sit on the couch. Tuesday. At seminar.
And before. I get up. I go to bed. I sleep — all the way through the night for the first time in more than two years. I count them in the morning.