Roland
ROLAND
W hen Adam touches himself for me the night I tell him about Jamie, I don’t say a word. I simply soak in the feeling.
He is beautiful in his way, his body writhing in the half shadow cast by the bedside lamp. His weathered features retain a certain boyishness, but his eyes are well and truly old, like ancient lakes carving their way into the topography of his face. I pity him, and I admire him, and I envy him all at once; he has seen too much pain and experienced too little pleasure, but still, more than I have. More than I ever will.
His excitement echoes through me as he gets closer, his pleasure cascading, amplifying, and urgent. I know that if I let myself go, I could get lost in a reverie—one of those kaleidoscopic wet dreams where all my fantasies meld together into a single blissful stream of consciousness. But I want to be present. With him. In this moment.
In another life, maybe we could have been something. But there are no lives in which we would have even met. I had to die to find Adam. And when he finishes, sending waves of ecstasy coursing through me, that trade almost feels worth it.