Chapter 1 Jesse #2
Will quirks an eyebrow and starts to say something, but is quickly distracted by the girl’s enthusiastic mouth.
Not wanting to engage and risk any questions or another invitation, I turn towards the sink and wash my hands, feeling the water rush through my fingers and imagining it rinsing away the whole interaction.
I unwrap another cinnamon candy, and I’m gone before Will can so much as moan, the weight of the night pressing down on me.
I wake the next morning with a start, lungs pulling in air like I’ve been underwater.
Sweat clings to my skin, images from a dream flashing in my mind like a strobe light.
Memories of pale moonlight casting shadows over tanned skin, desperate gasps for breath, hands gripping my body with a need that left behind more than just marks on my flesh.
Dropping my head, I groan into the pillow I’m clutching so hard I’m surprised it’s still intact.
Memories of that night still haunt me, sliding into my thoughts and dreams at will, uninvited and relentless.
I chase them even when I know I shouldn’t, like a moth drawn to a flame–dangerous and painful, yet impossible to resist.
My body stirs, heat building low in my gut as I replay the scenes over and over.
The memories are vivid despite it being so many years ago.
Almost six years to be exact. I’m probably remembering it being better than it was, over-inflating the raw energy between us.
But I still close my eyes and sink into the memory of a feeling that was more than pleasure.
I find myself shifting, absentmindedly rubbing my morning wood into the mattress and imagining I can feel him beneath me.
I reach for the top edge of the mattress, remembering the way I’d held his hands above his head as I laid over him and rolled my hips, fucking myself between the globes of his firm, round ass.
I’d already had him once, and he’d just finished taking me, his cum dripping down the cleft of my ass, but I was desperate with need all over again.
It was like that the whole night, and the next morning when I woke to him in my arms.
I roll onto my back, eyes clenched shut, remembering myself reaching for another condom and pulling him down on top of me.
My hand moves down my stomach and grips my cock, slowly sliding up and down the length as I recall the feeling of wrapping my arms around him and holding his body against mine while I slowly fucked him until he got comfortable enough to ride me.
The sight of his handsome face, his pouty pink lips open and gasping as he sat up and rocked himself on my cock, will live in my brain rent-free for the rest of my life.
I remember it so vividly I almost believe I can feel the weight of him again, and if I open my eyes, I’ll see–
Not this.
The sight of smeared lipstick staining my dick makes me freeze. Revulsion claws at my throat, a bitter reminder of all the ways my past has tainted me. A reminder that it’s been almost six years, and I likely wouldn’t have had a chance even if I had stayed. Why do I keep thinking of him?
It’s worse since I got sober. Without distractions and drugs to dull my brain, the memory of that one random night seems to creep up on me more than what feels reasonable.
Then again, it felt anything but random at the time.
I’ve never thought twice about a hookup before or since, but I have never been able to forget the stranger from the beach party.
Maybe the only way I stopped myself from thinking of him this much before was staying buried balls deep in another person and numbing myself brainless.
I fall back into the pillows, arm draped over my eyes like a makeshift shield. I’d give anything to fall asleep again, to forget my reality for a little while longer. To lose myself in the dreams that take me back to that night and make me believe, if only for a moment, that I’m still there.
Back when we went on our first tour, our manager, Francis, used to give me pills to help me sleep.
There were different ones. One of them would knock me out completely and make me groggy for days.
The other made me sleepwalk, but I would have the most vivid dreams. I used to take them just to chase those dreams, to keep him alive in the dark.
But I don’t anymore.
Pushing myself up to lean back against the headboard and covering my shame with the bedsheet, I drag my journal off the bedside table.
Originally, I’d started writing in these journals as an exercise with my therapist, to make sense of my chaotic thoughts.
These days, it’s a lifeline. I scrawl thoughts across the page, jagged and messy, hoping to capture forgotten details as if I could carve the ghost of him into something tangible.
More often than not, I just jot down my thoughts in lines that used to turn into lyrics.
Drag me under, don’t let me wake
I’d sleep forever for one more taste
Hold me down in the dark, make me feel love
Could I change the ending if I sleep long enough…
But it’s futile. I can’t hold on to it. The words won’t stick, sliding through my fingers like water.