7
By one forty-five in the morning, my bones started to ache the way they did when I was tired.
Leo rubbed his eyes as he opened his laptop and searched his music playlists. “I need something to wake us up.”
“Are you tired too?” I asked. “I’ve seen you drink, like, three coffees tonight.”
“I told you, I’ve built up a tolerance.” He scrolled through his playlists a moment longer, then closed the program with a sigh. “Are you sure you want to stay?”
“I told you I’m not leaving until you submit the project.”
He ran an eye over the work he’d completed so far. “I reckon I can finish in half an hour.”
“Really?”
“Yep. Once I’ve completed the model, I need to take photos and attach them to a design brief I’ve already written up. The physical model itself isn’t due until Monday because it’s more of a hassle for students to bring to school.”
I nodded and handed him the trees I had completed. It took me slightly longer than I expected because I tried my best to make them look good, but they weren’t as elegant as Leo’s card and paper building. “Is there anything else I can do?”
“That’s pretty much it, model-wise.” He nodded at his bed. “You can lie down if you need a rest.”
“If I lie down, I might fall asleep,” I said, walking over to his bed and slumping down on the bedspread. I twisted around so I was on my belly and propped my head up on my palm, watching Leo work.
“Talk to me,” he said.
“Talk to you?”
“Entertain me,” he clarified.
“What am I, your court jester?” I asked.
Leo smiled sheepishly. “You asked if there’s anything you can do. If you talk to me about something interesting, I’ll have the motivation to finish this off.”
“I don’t think any of the tantalising topics I can think of off the top of my head would appeal to you,” I said.
“Why not?”
“Well, there are tantalising topics,” I explained. “But if I talked about them, I’d make you uncomfortable.”
“Why?”
“Well, you’re kind of prudish.”
He bristled. “I am not prudish.”
“Anytime I even allude to sex, you blush. Which is totally fine, by the way. Although, it makes me wonder if I talk about sex too much.”
“I don’t mind if you talk about sex,” he said, although the last word was pitched low, as if he were afraid someone would overhear in his own apartment.
“Even now, you’re whispering,” I pointed out.
“I’m not. I’m not prudish,” Leo insisted. “I’m not.”
“Fine, not prudish then. Just…innocent.”
“I’m not innocent either,” he said.
I dropped the topic and watched him work as he finished the roof. I looked at his profile, the strong line of his nose and the curve of his cheek illuminated by the glow of the desk light. He looked different when he worked. Instead of his big smiles and crinkly eyes, he looked…not serious, but focused. To my surprise, it was just as pleasant to look at him like this as it was to receive one of his grins.
“You said you were a top?” Leo said, breaking the silence.
The question took me off guard, and my head almost slipped off my palm. “Yeah,” I replied.
Leo didn’t move his gaze from the model, but I knew he was waiting for me to go on.
“You didn’t even know what that was,” I said. “You were like, top of what?”
“Shut up,” Leo said without venom.
“Hey, it was funny,” I said.
“I was just confused at the moment. I know what a top is. At least…I have a pretty good idea.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. The top’s the one that…”
I waited.
Leo swallowed. “Penetrates,” he finished. “Right?”
“That’s correct.”
We returned to silence a moment more. I was happy to talk about sex — gay sex, even — but only if Leo brought it up.
“And, uh,” Leo continued, “the other guy is a bottom, right?”
“Mm-hmm. Some guys can switch. And some guys don’t like intercourse at all.”
“What do they do instead, then?”
I raised a brow at him. “I’m sure you can guess.”
He wouldn’t meet my eyes. “You don’t mind talking about this stuff, do you?”
“No, I don’t mind. Why, do you want to talk about it?”
He didn’t react in a flustered way like some straight guys might. Instead, he shrugged one shoulder. “I guess I’m curious. A lot of the time in straight relationships, it’s kinda obvious what each person will do.”
“Maybe, but not everyone does it that way,” I pointed out. “Some guys like to be pegged by their girlfriends.”
“Right,” Leo said. “But… how did you know you were a top? Trial and error?”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
“Then what kind of guys do you like?”
“We already had this conversation, remember?”
“Yeah, but…you’d really top guys taller than you. Bigger than you?”
“Why not? Like I said before, I like all types of guys. But I have to admit, something is thrilling about having sex with a guy who’s bigger than me.”
Leo glanced at me, his eyes big in the lamplight. “Yeah?”
I nodded. “It’s like…a power rush, sort of? Like if we were in a fight or something, he could totally beat me. I’m not that strong, not compared to other guys.” I gestured to my arms to prove my point. While I tried to keep fit, I didn’t have a habit of lifting heavy iron circles. “So I have this guy who’s bigger and stronger than me, and if he wanted, he could throw me around or pummel me to a pulp. But instead, he’s willingly bending over —” I cut myself short as Leo’s shoulders locked up. “I’m being vulgar.”
“No!” he said. “You’re not being vulgar at all. I asked.”
“Yeah, but.” I shrugged. “It’s hard to speak politely about sex — or should I say coitus.”
Leo cracked a smile. “Copulation.”
“Fornication,” I replied.
“Reproduction,” he said.
“Ugh. That sounds too scientific.”
“True. Love-making?”
I flinched. Lovemaking was kind of an old-fashioned term, the kind of phrase that any of my past hookups would laugh at. But suddenly, it seemed…kind of sweet. Even worse, I realised I’d never made love before. I’d had sex — all kinds of sex. Intercourse and oral and handjobs. But I’d never made love because, as the word suggested, you had to actually be in love with the person you were having sex with. Right?
Something even worse occurred to me: I’d never slept with someone I liked. Sure, men had been charming and flirtatious, but to really like someone, you had to know them. I didn’t know the men I’d slept with. Not really.
Last year, when I was messing about, I’d avert my eyes in the heat of the moment. Even if the guy was handsome, had a perfect body, or was eager to please. I knew it was rude to look away or close my eyes, but I did it without thinking. Maintaining eye contact with someone who was ultimately a stranger felt like…pretending. Like I’d fast-forwarded through a film to watch the exciting climactic battle scene, but with no understanding of character motivations or stakes.
Some of my friends I partied with last year liked that. I used to like that. It was…convenient.
But now I wanted something different. I wanted to be intimate with someone, someone who I could look into the eyes of as we were stripped, raw and vulnerable.
“Honestly, you’re not vulgar at all,” Leo said, jolting me out of my thoughts. He was still focused on his model, so he hadn’t seen me have a tiny freak out. “Other guys are way worse. It’s all pussy and tits and a whole bunch of other graphic language. So trust me, the way you talk doesn’t bother me at all.”
I shoved my thoughts away and pulled a smile. “Except for the fact you’re an innocent prude,” I teased.
I expected him to protest, like before, but instead he said quietly, “I suppose I am a bit shy about this stuff.”
“Why?” I asked. “Are you religious?”
“You already asked me that, remember?”
“Right. But you went to a catholic school.”
“Yeah. I mean, they did teach us about abstinence and no sex before marriage, but that didn’t stop any of my classmates. My parents didn’t care about that stuff at all — they had me and got married when I was three. I attended the wedding.”
“Did you wear a mini suit and everything?”
“Yeah, and I threw confetti.”
“You have to show me photos.
“If you ever visit my mum or dad’s, I will,” Leo said. “I think they only sent me to a catholic school because the only other school nearby was super sketchy. I mean, the school still taught us about STIs and contraceptives and consent, probably because it’s mandatory for them to teach us. My classmates made jokes the whole time we did sex ed.”
“It was the same at my school,” I said. “I think all boys are like that. Bravado and all that.”
Leo was frowning.
“Why, were you not like that?” I asked.
He shook his head. “The whole time, I felt so…awkward. And clueless. I’d never even watched…y’know, before. And there were guys in my class, bragging about rooting a chick from the girls’ school down the road or talking about how they trimmed their pubic hair, and I was just…” He looked ill. “I felt like I had a fever.”
“I’m sure there were others who felt like you did,” I said. “They probably just hid it better.”
He shrugged. “Maybe, but I’m still shy about this stuff. Most people here are super liberal and sex-positive and all that, but…I don’t know, I’m just…” he trailed off.
“Everyone’s different,” I said. “Growing up, my family never talked about sex or anything. They didn’t even have ‘the talk’ with me. They just bought me this kid's book that explained it all. For the longest time, I thought babies came from a ‘special hug’.”
Leo chuckled softly. “Same. Not the book thing, but my parents didn’t give me the talk either. I guess they didn’t need to.”
“Honestly, now I don’t mind the fact my parents never talked about it. It would freak me out if they suddenly asked if I was using condoms and being safe and all that stuff. But I think everything was bottled up in me as a teenager, so once I came to uni, I went crazy. That’s probably why I was so obsessed with sex. I’m still obsessed with sex, to be honest. The comforting thing is, most people are.”
Leo nodded slightly at that. I wasn’t sure if I’d successfully reassured him.
“Are you still…you know?” he asked quietly.
“Hooking up with strangers?” I asked.
He nodded. “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”
I shook my head. “I’m not. I’m committed to the find-a-boyfriend mission.” I yawned and covered my mouth.
His timidness was immediately replaced with concern. “Are you tired?” he asked.
“Just a bit.”
“You can sleep here if you want.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. You came here to help me. The least I can do is offer my bed. It’s a double, so there should be enough space for both of us.”
A voice in my brain that sounded suspiciously like my mum said I should decline out of politeness. Another voice, which sounded like Rome, said sharing a bed with a straight man wasn’t a good idea. But I was exhausted and Leo had offered.
“Okay, thanks. Do you have anything I could wear as pyjamas?”
“I have a spare pair.” He stood up and searched his closet before handing me a handful of fabric. “It might be a bit big, though.”
I shook out the clothing to reveal a pale yellow pyjama shirt with a giant picture of a sun. The matching bottoms were also yellow and covered in repeating mini-suns with happy faces.
I stared at them. I don’t know why I was so surprised; this was exactly what I should’ve guessed Leo wore to bed.
I changed in the bathroom. The t-shirt swallowed me, and the bottoms were loose, so I had to roll the waistband a few times. Afterwards, I washed my face and brushed my teeth using toothpaste on my finger. I’d taken a shower earlier that evening, so I didn’t feel worried about dirtying Leo’s sheets.
Once I returned to the main room, I collapsed in his bed and pulled the blanket over me.
“I won’t be too long,” Leo told me.
“That’s okay.” I was so exhausted that even the lights couldn’t stop me from closing my eyes and falling asleep.
At some point, I was woken up by Leo getting into bed beside me, the mattress dipping under his weight.
I must’ve made some weird gollum-noise because Leo winced and whispered. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay.” I rubbed my eyes. “What time is it?”
“Last time I checked, it was two-thirty,” he replied, rearranging the blanket over us. His head rested on the other pillow and he was careful to leave some space between us.
I made a noise in reply and closed my eyes, but I didn’t fall asleep immediately. I wasn’t sure why — maybe it was because Leo made me nervous. We hadn’t known each other long, but I’d shared beds with strangers before. I’d had sex with guys I’d met an hour earlier. Why did this feel weird?
I tossed and turned, trying to get comfortable.
“Are you okay?” Leo whispered.
“Yeah, just trying to fall asleep.”
“Sorry for waking you,” he said again.
“It’s not your fault.”
I was just starting to drift off again when Leo whispered again. “Winnie? Are you awake?”
“Mm-hmm.” I was too tired to protest the nickname.
“Can I tell you something?”
“What is it?” I asked, already thinking up possibilities. Was he uncomfortable sharing a bed with me? Or was he about to admit that he kept dead bodies in the cupboard under the sink? Or maybe it was something minor, like he snored or fell asleep to white noise.
“Um.” He inhaled deeply. “I’m a virgin.”
If my brain was fifty percent awake before, it was at least fifty-five percent awake now. “Really?”
He nodded. “Is that weird?”
“No!” I said hastily. “It isn’t. I’m… a little surprised.”
“Because it’s weird.”
“No, Leo,” I said. “It’s because you’re sociable, you’re good-looking, and you have a nice body.”
“You haven’t seen my body,” he said.
“I can tell, even with your clothes on. You’re tall and fit. I thought you’d be drowning in women.”
Even in the darkness, I saw him bite his pinkie nail. “It is kind of unusual, though. Isn’t it?”
“No! You’re only nineteen.”
“I’m almost twenty.”
“Twenty is still young,” I said.
He was quiet for a moment. “I guess that’s why I seem like a prude: I’m inexperienced. And…I want you to know that when you talk about sex stuff, it doesn’t make me uncomfortable. Actually,” he took a breath, “I admire you.”
“Me? Why?”
“You have to be brave to have sex with someone.”
“I’ve never really thought about it that way.”
“That’s the way I see it,” Leo said.
He didn’t say anything else, so I didn’t either.
At some point, I fell asleep. I had several strange dreams that morphed and blended into each other, but I couldn’t recall any of them when I woke up. I cracked my eyes open, and Leo’s ceiling came into focus. He must’ve lowered the blind at some point last night, but morning light cracked around the edges, making the blind look like it emitted a silvery glow.
I carefully turned to see Leo lying with his back to me. His blond hair was trimmed neatly at the nape of his neck, his shoulders were relaxed, and he was wearing a lilac shirt. I lifted the blanket to see his pyjama bottoms were a darker shade of purple and covered in drawings of slices of passionfruit.
Then I looked at my own sun-patterned pants and my case of morning wood. I forced myself to stare at the ceiling for a few minutes, waiting for it to go down, then crept out of bed. Leo had tidied up last night; his desk was empty except for the model, and all the scraps were in the bin. Next to his sink was a collection of mugs, washed and dried.
I found the clothes I’d worn yesterday, quickly changed, grabbed my stuff and left the room.
As I waited for the elevator, I sent Leo a text message because it would’ve been rude to leave without saying anything.
Edwin: Hey Leo, I didn’t want to wake you this morning. Just letting you know that I’ve gone home. I hope you get a good rest after last night. I’ll see you tonight :)