26. Felix
TWENTY-SIX
FELIX
My Valentine’s “date” with Hayworth soοο didn’t go the way I thought it would, although I don’t know what I expected from the guy who hates love. If anyone had told me I’d spend it bashing pinatas and downing tequila I wouldn’t have believed them.
And yet, despite that, it was fun. It was liberating. It was cathartic. In fact, I never knew how much I needed to break some shit and release some of this…sadness and anger and frustration that’s been boiling inside until I met him and his unconventional ways.
The truth of the matter is I never let anything out. Not when Mark turned into a dick, not when I divorced, and definitely not when he tried to take the girls from me. It didn’t help that I had no real friends in California, but even beyond that. I’ve always focused on the girls and providing them a stable and safe environment. That’s all that mattered to me and that’s all that matters to me now. But I’ve needed to look after myself too.
And that’s probably one of the reasons I like Hayworth so much. Probably why I’m falling for him. Because with him I’m allowed to think of myself. To be myself. To be just a man. Not a dad, not a trans guy, not a responsible adult. Just an adult…with some issues.
So, all in all, it was a great Valentine’s evening with Hayworth. Much better than sitting home alone wondering what’s wrong with me or going out for dinner and being subjected to all the lovey-dovey crap I want for myself but can’t get. Definitely better than going out with Hayworth to a fancy restaurant and putting on a show because it’s not much of a show for me. Not anymore.
So of course when he invites me to his Anti-Valentine Break-Up Bonfire I accept. It beats trying to work while the girls ask me a million questions about Hayworth and what he’s like and where I have to pretend I’m interested but not too interested so they don’t get too attached, and lie to myself that I’m not at all interested in him other than to get my fill.
Gosh. How have I managed to complicate things so much?
Trust me to get hit by insta-lust and insta-love all in the same breath. But I guess with being an aspiring author, and consuming way too much romance it was bound to happen, if only for the irony.
I turn up at the Smash Bus a little past eight but the place is already filled with cars, music and a barrel fire that despite its size feels toasty on my hands and toes, battling the biting cold trying to pierce through.
“You came!” he says as soon as he sees me, and my heart, the fucking traitor, skips a beat.
He’s wearing a thin coat, no scarf, no hat and I feel overdressed and slightly wimpy. But what can I do? I’m used to the scorching heat.
“I don’t know why you’re always so surprised,” I reply.
“What can I say? I’m used to people running the other way after a few days of knowing me.”
“I’m sure that’s not true,” I tell him and put my hands into my pockets waiting for him to make the move if he wants to kiss or hug me.
He does neither and I swallow my disappointment like the champ I am.
“Did you bring what I said?” He looks at the box at my feet and I nod. “Do you mind if I go through it? I need to make sure it’s all safe.”
I shake my head and he leafs through my small cardboard box full of memories but he won’t find anything unseemly in there. I followed his instructions to the letter. Only paper and photographs.
“Great,” he says and stands back up holding one of my pictures. “Are you really gonna burn that? You’re so adorable in it.”
I look at him instead of the photo and nod. “I hate it. It’s my what I call ‘awkward phase’ post-transition.”
“Well, I think you look great in it, but if you hate it, consider it burned.” He drops the photo back into the box and helps me carry it toward the barrel and puts it down at the edge of the safe sanded perimeter around it.
I stare into the golden embers as he turns down the music and welcomes everyone to the Break-up Bonfire. He introduces Wells and a couple other people who will be going through people’s things to ensure their break-up stuff doesn’t contain any dangerous or illegal materials and asks everyone to keep a safe distance from the fire at all times until they’re chosen. Then he turns the music back up and he and all the other club members responsible do their checks.
I watch him flash his light at box after box with a seriousness I haven’t seen in him before. It’s a complete contradiction to the man who came up with all these events to help people move on from heartbreak. Then again am I not a contradiction myself? I’m a thirty-one-year-old dad who’s been through hell and yet I’m hooking up with a man and pretending I don’t feel things I promised myself not to.
I take a deep breath and look up. The stars are so clear and bright. And quiet, just like I wish my head and heart could be, so I don’t overthink things and become a victim of my own imagination and desires.
A few people whose boxes have been checked step up to the fire and start burning things, letters, photographs, marriage licenses, all the remnants of their past they wish they could forget. I’m enchanted watching them experience a beautiful catharsis with each piece of paper they turn to ashes.
Before I know what I’m doing, I’m stepping up too, guided by the brightness of the fire and chuck everything into the fire in big chunks. I don’t need to mourn the loss of every one of those photos or memories. It was enough they sent me down memory lane collecting them or printing them out from my social media. I just want rid of them. I want a taste of that clarity I’ve seen in everyone else’s eyes. I want to move on. To finally accept the past and move past it.
The hotter the fire burns, the lighter I feel, as if a weight has lifted from my shoulders. As if I’ve burned the fear that’s settled in my chest since my husband’s betrayal, so when I walk away and find Hayworth in my path I take him in my arms, smile and kiss him.
I won’t be a prisoner of my past and my responsibilities anymore. I’m allowed to live. I’m allowed to love. If it ends in heartache, well…that’s part of life, isn’t it? Pain is living and living is pain just as much as love is. And what could hurt more than the man you thought was your everything stopping loving you overnight?
I can survive whatever this thing between Hayworth and me is. And most importantly, I can enjoy it.
“What was that for?” he asks when I pull back from the kiss and I shake my head.
I hang on to him the rest of the night. Even when Wells looks down on us, I don’t pull away and neither does Hayworth. We stay hugging the whole time as more people step up and burn their things and only break away when Hayworth and Wells put the fire out.
He gets me a drink in a Solo red cup and we retreat to his car, in the back seat, enjoying the music, each other’s company and the high from the booze.
“Are you okay?” he whispers after what feels like an eternity and I breathe as if for the first time.
“I’ve never been better,” I reply and glance up at him.
Here in the dark, the way his eyes catch the light from outside, whether it’s moonlight or just regular old headlights, the way he blinks slowly and parts his lips ever so slightly as if he needs more air, I can almost believe there’s something more here. Something real brewing between us that’s not as one-sided as I thought.
“Kiss me,” I tell him before my brain catches up and bursts the magic lie of this moment. “Kiss me, Hayworth.”
He does. And it’s so good. It’s thrilling and quiver-inducing and I feel it all the way down my spine, to my toes, to the top of my head and above it like something…spiritual.
“Should we get out of here?” he asks and I nod.
He opens the door and gets into the driver’s seat and I climb to the front as he pulls away.
“Wait. You’ve been drinking.” I grab his hand on the wheel and feel the warmth of his skin travelling up my arms like an army of butterflies.
“No, I haven’t,” he says with the same seriousness I saw in him earlier, and I let go of him so he can take me home.
We barely make it to the door before I step in his path and claim those lips again. He presses me against him, one hand on the small of my back, the other between my shoulder blades. I let a moan escape me I’ve been holding all night long and he swallows it with an insatiable hunger I can feel all the way to my bones.
Somehow, we make it through the door and into his bed and we strip each other until we’re as naked as the day we were born, our mouths tangled in a messy dance that’s both intoxicating and motivating.
We lie next to each other and our hands become instant explorers as if landing on each other’s bodies for the first time. I massage his chest and arms and slide them down to his fingers and from there find my destination. He throbs when I wrap my hand around him and when I stroke him he gasps in my mouth.
He hastily moves his hand to my own cock and plays with me as I do with him. I run my thumb over his slit and it gets sticky with his pre-cum. I bring it up to our mouths so we can taste him together. He groans into my mouth.
I return to my previous endeavor as he slips a thick finger inside me but he doesn’t stop pinching my cock and eliciting more moans out of me.
“You’re so fucking sexy when you moan,” he groans and I tug at his cock as a response until he moans too.
“You’re so fucking sexy when you make me moan,” I tell him and tighten my hold around him.
He catches his breath and I feel the veins on his length pop against my palm as the heat rises between us. The tension in my body grows, his finger pushing deeper inside me, my pulsating cock getting harder and harder the more he plays with it until I’m barely able to move. And yet somehow I manage to stroke him within an inch of his life and he’s gasping in my mouth.
“God! I’m so close,” he mumbles.
I push my leg between his and give him some reprieve by rubbing his taint in search of his hole that clenches at my prodding.
I don’t let that deter me. I try again and again and despite me being unable to breach his ring of muscle he moans in my mouth.
I return my fingers to his cock and slick them up with the pre-cum leaking generously out of him and creating a wet patch in the sheets under us and when I return to his hole it’s far more cooperative.
I slip a finger, then two inside him and Hayworth gasps so hard he pulls away from our kiss and rests his mouth against my chin. I curl my fingers and he does the same with his inside me and we both whimper on each other as we hit each other’s spot in sync.
“Come on, baby. Come for me. Give it to me,” I whisper in his ear and keep brushing at his prostate once, twice, three times and then I take my fingers out and stroke him with the same erratic, desperate moves that make him spill his load all over my stomach and cock.
“That’s a good boy,” I groan and stick our bodies together while he bites my lip and tries to fill his lungs with oxygen again.
But he doesn’t stop stroking and finger-fucking me. He keeps on going despite being spent and I help him by thrusting against his hand, driving his finger deeper and rubbing my cock against his until I look him in the eyes, kiss his mouth, and my own orgasm claws its way out of me and wraps around me like a comfort blanket.
“God, I love this,” he mutters, hugging me, resting his head in the crook of my neck.
“Me too,” I tell him and bring my hand up to hold him closer.
I love this too. I can’t lie to myself anymore. I could stay here forever and that’s probably the most dangerous realization I’ve ever had.
Because it means guaranteed heartbreak.
But I don’t care. I’m already too far gone to stop it. I’ll just have to live with the consequences of my actions. And I can worry about those tomorrow. For tonight, I just want to be with him. To do this again. To do this until we can’t anymore.