Chapter 20 Reece
TWENTY
REECE
I open the door before he knocks. I have been waiting for him.
I’d been at the door for forty seconds — heard the building door downstairs, heard him on the stairs, heard him on the landing, counted his steps the last six feet. I opened it before he could lift his hand to knock. He looks at me.
“Hi,” he says.
“Hi.”
I step back. He comes in. I close the door behind him and lock it.
The kitchen window is doing what it does in the evening light, which is to say almost nothing — the brick wall of the next building is three feet away and the light off it is the color of brick. The radiator is doing what it does. He looks around. He does not say anything. He is taking it in.
He is here now on a Saturday at eight in the evening, in this apartment, for the first time. He is letting himself look around because looking around is a thing he gets to do now.
“You cleaned,” he says.
“I did.”
“It looks like you.”
“Does it.”
“It looks like a place a careful person lives.”
“You changed the sheets.”
“How do you know I changed the sheets.”
“You said three days ago in seminar that you had not changed your sheets in two weeks. I am assuming you changed them today.”
I almost laugh.
“I changed them today.”
“Okay.”
“Griffin.”
“Yes.”
“Take off your coat.”
He takes off his coat. He hangs it on the hook next to mine. He puts his shoes by the door, lined up neatly, the toes against the wall. He sees me see him do this. He does not say anything. I do not say anything.
He stands in the middle of the apartment.
I stand in the entryway. There is the eight feet of living room between us.
He is looking at me. I am looking at him.
The lamp on the desk is on. The lamp by the bed is on, visible through the open bedroom door.
The water glass is on the desk. He is letting himself notice. I am letting him notice.
“Reed.”
“Yeah.”
“I have decided something.”
“Okay.”
“Tonight is going to be different.”
“Okay.”
“I want to tell you what I want.”
“Okay.”
I have heard him say this before. Last week, in his apartment.
I want to ask you something first. The phrasing is not the same and the body it is coming out of is not the same.
Last week he was the one decided. Tonight he is the one asking the same question I had to answer last week.
He has crossed the room to ask it. He is asking it in the apartment where I told him I was an FBI witness.
I do not say any of this. I let him ask.
He looks at me.
“I want you to fuck me tonight.”
I look at him. We said we would figure it out, and he has figured it out, and the decision is this. He’s asking, the way he asked last week. Yes.
“Yes,” I say.
“Okay.”
“Griffin.”
“Yes.”
“Have you…“
I stop. I do not know how to ask. I am asking him to do a thing he has not done with me before. We did not do it this way, before, when there was a before. I do not know if he has done it with anyone. He looks at me.
“No,” he says. “I have not.”
“With anyone.”
“With anyone.”
I nod once.
“I am telling you because I want you to know. I am not handing you a thing to be careful about. I am telling you because we said we would tell each other. I am telling you and I am still asking.”
“Okay.”
“Are you…“
“I’m not freaked out.”
“Are you sure.”
“I just want to do it right.”
“You are going to do it right.”
“Yeah.”
He crosses the eight feet. He kisses me in the middle of the apartment and his hand is on the side of my neck.
The kiss is not the kiss from last week, which was decided.
This kiss is asking. It is the same kind of asking he was doing with his words a second ago.
The mouth keeps doing what it was doing.
He is asking me with his mouth and I am answering with mine.
After a minute he pulls back half an inch and says, “Bedroom.”
“Yes.”
The lamp is on. The bed is the bed I have slept in alone for fifteen months.
Full size, gray sheets, the lamp on the side table with the brass base from a thrift store I went to in October.
The room is small. The room has a window that faces the back of the next house over.
I cleaned it at three in the afternoon and turned the lamp on at six because it would be dark by the time he came. He turns to me in the doorway.
“Yes,” he says. “Or no.”
“Yes.”
“Yes what.”
“Yes, Griffin.”
“Okay.”
We get our clothes off without ceremony.
We get on the bed. I’m over him. He’s on his back, looking up at me.
I stop. I stop because I — I don’t know what I am.
I’m over him. Between his legs. I’ve been here before, a thousand times, with him, before.
But I haven’t been here for two years and I’ve never been here for this.
It’s hitting me harder than I knew it would.
“Reed.”
“Yeah.”
“Hey.”
“Yeah. Give me a second.”
“Take it.”
I take a second. I look at him. I look at his face and his hair and the small mark on his shoulder.
I noticed it last week and did not ask about it and have not asked about it and am not going to ask about it.
I look at his chest, which is moving — his hand on my hip, just there.
He’s going to let me do this. I haven’t done this with him and I don’t know how my body is supposed to be doing this.
I am over him. I am the one in charge tonight. I am scared.
I do not say I am scared.
I think he knows. He puts his hand on the side of my face.
“Hey,” he says.
“Yeah.”
“I have not done this. You have not done this with me. We are figuring it out together.”
“Yeah.”
“You do not have to be a different person tonight. I asked for this. I asked because I wanted you to be the person you are, doing this with me. I am not asking you to perform anything.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yeah. Okay.”
“Come here.”
I come there. I come down to him. He kisses me.
His hand is on the back of my neck and the kiss is slow.
After a minute I’m moving, my mouth on his neck.
I move down to the place behind his left ear.
The freckle is still there. Of course it is.
He’s had it for as long as I’ve known him and never known about it — it’s in a place a person can’t see on himself, and nobody else has ever told him.
I press my mouth to it. He shifts but doesn’t ask. I keep my mouth there a second longer than I need to. Then I keep going, my hand between us, my hand on him. He’s half-hard. Hard enough. I hadn’t been sure what I’d find. He’s hard enough.
I stroke him slow. He makes a sound. Not the same sound as last week, a different one, lower.
His hand grips my shoulder. His eyes close.
I keep going. I move my mouth down. I put my mouth on his chest. His ribs.
His hip. He is making a small steady sound that I have not heard from him in two years and the sound is the same and I am the one making him make it.
“Reed.”
“Yeah.”
“Come back up.”
I come back up. He kisses me. He kisses me harder now.
He reaches over and gets the lube and the condom from the side table.
He puts them on the bed next to my hand, the same gesture as last week, the same exact arrangement.
I put my hand back between his legs. I get my hand wet. I put my finger against him. I stop.
“Reed.”
“Tell me if…“
“I will.”
“Tell me if anything is…“
“Reed. I will tell you. Go.”
I push my finger in. He inhales. His whole body adjusts, the way a body adjusts to something it has not had before, and I stop, and he says, “Keep going,” and I keep going.
I add a second finger.
He says, “Oh.”
He says it small. He says it the way someone says oh when something’s just been clarified for them. His hand on the sheet tightens. His hips do not move. He is holding still on purpose. He is letting his body learn the thing my hand is doing.
“Talk to me,” I say.
“It’s good.”
“Yeah?”
“It’s, Reed. Yeah. It’s a lot.”
“Too much?”
“No. Just a lot.”
“Okay.”
“Don’t stop.”
“I’m not.”
I do not stop. I keep going. I take my time.
I take more time than I had with him last week.
Last week his body was ready, tonight his body is learning, and my hand has to be patient.
I have done this before, with him, in the version of my life I had before.
I add the third. His breath catches. I stop.
“Reed.”
“Just a second.”
“Okay.”
He is breathing. His chest is rising too fast. His hand has come up to my face and his palm is on my cheek and his thumb is on my mouth and I do not move.
“Okay,” he says. “Okay. Keep going.”
“You sure.”
“Yes.”
I keep going. His face is doing a thing it hasn’t done all night — his face has gone soft.
The face he wears when he’s processing, the still version, has gone.
What’s under it is the man without the still version.
He’s letting me see it. His mouth is open.
His eyes are wet. I see it. I don’t say anything.
I keep going. There’s a tear at the corner of one eye, and as I watch it runs down the side of his face into his hair.
He doesn’t move. He doesn’t break eye contact.
He doesn’t say anything. He isn’t crying in a way that’s a thing — he’s letting his body do whatever it does.
“Griffin.”
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what.”
“Don’t stop. Don’t make it a thing.”
“Okay.”
“It’s not bad.”
“I know.”
“Keep going.”
I keep going. Still using my hand. He’s still under me. His eyes are wet and there’s a second tear, and I’m watching it. Watching his face. I’m moving my hand slow inside him and his hand is on the side of my face and we’re doing this together and the tears aren’t stopping it.
“Now,” he says.
“Are you…“
“Now, Reed.”
“Okay.”