6. Luca
I wake up the next morning, and the first thought that pops into my head is: Travis and I need to talk about where we stand.
That thought is closely followed by: I can't do it without pills.
I stretch my legs out and slowly twist around. Travis is fast asleep, his face pressed heavily into the pillow.
I sneak out of bed, quiet as a mouse, and tiptoe out of the room. Once inside the bathroom, I grab my toiletries bag from under the sink and throw back a few pills.
I take care of business, splash some water on my face, try to tame my curls a bit, and then go back to the bedroom.
Travis is awake, staring out at the ocean. I climb into the bed beside him.
"Morning, benzinho."
"Morning. Been up long?"
"A few minutes. I needed to pee."
"I do, too, but I can't be arsed—bothered—to get up."
"I know what arsed means," I say, taking the opportunity to grab his ass cheeks.
I may not be into penetrative sex, but I can objectively say Travis has a great butt, often overlooked because of his tremendous cock. The man is basically sex on legs.
That thought, like always, depresses me, so I roll over onto my back and stare at the ceiling.
"It's starting to hurt. Can't put it off any longer. I'll be back in a sec," Travis says, getting up.
While he's in the bathroom, the first numb wave rolls in.
Okay, good. The pills are kicking in.
I try to school my thoughts for the conversation I want to have with him.
We need to figure out what the hell we're doing because this limbo thing isn't working.
Over the years, I've taken the easy way out, blaming all the craziness and complication of his world for why we can't be together.
The show.
The fame and notoriety.
His reputation that follows him around like a bad smell.
That fucking sex tape.
When we've fought, I've cited all of those things as reasons why we can't be together.
But that isn't fair.
And it's not entirely accurate, either.
I love Travis with everything I've got, but this yo-yoing back and forth thing we've been doing for years is just as much on me as it is on him.
And what it really boils down to is that I don't think I'm enough for him.
Never have been…and I don't know if I ever will be.
Before I start picking apart all the ways I don't measure up, which I have permanently stored in my head, Travis is back, his big floppy cock dangling in front of his suntanned legs.
His whole body is perfection. Like, when I was younger and I dreamed of the perfect man, it's a body like Travis's that I envisioned.
Broad. Slightly hairy. Masculine. Rugged.
Someone that doesn't look like me, basically.
I'm too angular. Too smooth. Too…pretty. I don't like it, even though Travis keeps telling me I'm the most beautiful guy he's ever seen.
He jumps back into bed. "Did you enjoy checking me out?"
I grin as another soothing wave rolls through me. "Always."
He grabs his thick meat. "Wanna fool around?"
There's no chance I can get hard now. Maybe other guys can when they take pills, but for me, I'm stuck in softie land, for the first little while, anyway.
"Maybe later. Can we talk?"
"And there goes my hard-on," he jokes with a grin.
I glance down at his still fully erect cock. "As if. That thing is like the Energizer Bunny."
He smiles proudly then brings the sheet up to cover himself and turns to face me. "What would you like to talk about?"
"Us."
His eyebrows lift. "In that case, I'm grabbing my titanium jock strap in case I need protection."
"You won't need protection." I take his hand in mine, bring it to my mouth, and pepper it with tender kisses. "I love you so much."
"I love you so much, too."
"I want to be with you. I want to make it work."
"I'm the same. You're the only one for me, Luca. You're it. My forever guy."
I wince at his words.
The drugs haven't numbed all my emotions just yet. A lifetime of guilt, shame, and unworthiness swirls inside me, gnawing at my chest.
"What's that famous definition of insanity?"
"Doing the same thing but expecting different results?" Travis offers.
"Yeah. That's it. How do we not do that? How do we make sure that this time it's different? Because it has to be different this time. I don't know how much more I have left in me if we just keep going round and round in circles."
His jaw tightens. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah. Did I say something wrong?"
My English is pretty good, but sometimes I unintentionally say something that seems to set him off.
"When you said you don't know how much more you have left in you."
"Oh. No. Not like that. I mean… I mean it's tiring. Fight. Break up. Fuck. And repeat."
The corners of his mouth edge up. "Fucking is the good kind of tiring, though."
I seize on the opening. "You know I have feelings about that."
His fingers wriggle out of my grip, and he sits up higher, resting his back against the headboard. "And I've told you countless times, and I'll repeat myself a million more times if necessary, I have never been more sexually fulfilled than I am with you."
I avert my gaze.
Why can't I believe that? Why can't my stupid brain let his words sink in and allow me to accept that he means it?
"Do you believe me?" he asks.
"I want to."
"I'm not lying."
"I know that. I trust you."
"So…if you trust me, and you know I'm telling the truth, what's the block?"
I drop my head. "Me. It's me."
"Hey. I didn't mean it like that."
"I know." I blow out a breath and run my hands up and down my thighs. "I've just always felt uncomfortable being…"
"A solosexual?"
I flinch as he says it. "See? I don't even like the word."
"Okay. We'll use another word. One that comes close to sounding as scorching hot as our sex life is."
"I just…I just want to make sure it's really enough for you."
"Mate. It is. It really is." He pins me with a serious look. "But my words don't mean shit if you don't think you're enough."
I nod because he's right.
"Remember when we first talked about your sexuality? Properly."
"Yeah. It was after the second round, a few weeks after we met at that hideous season opening party you insist on throwing every year."
He chuckles. "That's right. You said something really cool, something that's always stuck with me, after you explained how you have no interest in oral or anal sex, that masturbation is where it's at for you."
"It is." I like a few other things, too, particularly pec and nipple play, but that's about the extent of it.
"You were talking about some of your previous partners. You mentioned that not all of them identified as gay, but that in a way, that didn't matter because it's not about sexuality. All guys jerk off, and some like doing it with other guys. It kind of…I don't know…transcends sexuality. Remember?"
"I do."
I sink a bit further into the bed, my mind swimming. The pills kicking in like they should.
"I really liked that. Because I've always said I'm bi, or that I lean bi, and a lot of the time, people throw that in my face. Make up your fucking mind, they say. Or they tell me I'm in denial. That it's a phase. That I'm actually gay but too afraid to come right out and say it. Or they try to correct me and suggest that the right label for me is pan. It's all bullshit. I like all bodies, and I like a lot of different types of sex. But bi is the word I've chosen that works for me, and if anyone has a problem, they can suck it."
His green eyes flick to me. "But nothing on God's green earth beats what we did last night. I swear on my life. I swear on my brothers' lives. My cock. Your hands. A bit of pec play. And I'm a goner. It's ecstasy. There's nothing else like it. I can come fucking hands-free with you just tweaking my nipples."
As if to prove his point, he yanks the sheet off himself. His cock springs out, hard and oozing pre-come from the slit.
I blink a few times then sit up, feeling off-balance. I take it in, run his words through my head over and over, and suddenly, something shifts within me. I can feel it physically as much as I experience it mentally.
It's like his words have finally broken through that previously impenetrable layer.
I feel the truth and sincerity in what he's telling me.
Because before I had shame about what I liked sexually, before I felt bad or ostracized because of it, I felt excitement, like I'd discovered something that was perfectly coded for me.
And there's something about what Travis said and the way he's looking at me now, with love and affection in his eyes, that's reconnecting me with that feeling I lost many, many years ago.
"I used to jerk off with a neighbor."
"Okaaay…"
It's a big jump. It makes sense in my head, but I can see how it came out of left field for Travis.
I rest against the headboard.
"The summer I went to visit my biological mother in the States."
"Oh. Okay…"
"There was this family who lived next door to her. They had a son. One year older than me, a senior in high school. Straight. Or so he said. He and his sister would come over for a swim most days. One time, I went to use the bathroom. When I came out, he was standing in the hallway with his dick out, stroking."
"If you notice my dick getting hard as you tell this story, it's because my mind is permanently in the gutter. I apologize in advance."
I crack a smile. "It does sound a little porny now that I think about it."
"Phew. Glad it's not just me." He wipes his brow. "I was starting to feel like a real asshole. I'm not meaning to trivialize this at all."
"I know you're not. Anyway, long story short, we got into a habit of jerking off together. Usually in my room, lying side by side on the bed. He never let me touch him. Once, when my foot accidentally bumped his, he almost leaped off the bed. He was…intense about that."
"People who have hang-ups usually are."
"Yeah. I suppose you're right. Anyway, a few days before I was due to leave, he and his sister were over in the pool and Ashley made some comment about how great it was that I'd made such a close friend. Well, you should have seen his face. It's like I'd outed him or something. He totally took it the wrong way. Later that night, he came over. He warned me that if I told anyone what we'd been doing, he'd kill me. I tried to assure him I hadn't said anything to anyone. That Ashley's comment was an innocent one. She honestly meant we were friends, nothing more. Certainly not jerk-off buddies. He wasn't having it. And then, right before he left my room, he turned back to me and said, "I'm not a degenerate like you."
"Maaaate. I'm so sorry."
"That's where it came from."
"Where what came from?"
"Me feeling bad about my sexuality. Before that, I liked it. I knew it was, let's call it a little niche, but I didn't feel bad about masturbating. After that, I did. I… Fuck. I can't believe I didn't piece it together before now."
"It's good to talk, right?"
"Yeah. It is."
"I say that's something we make more of an effort to do this time around. Assuming there is a this time around?"
"I smile at the crazy guy I'm head-over-heels in love with. "There is."
We kiss, and it feels so right to be back together with Travis.
I know keeping my pill taking from him isn't smart. But that is one thing I can't have him know about me. Because unlike my sexuality, I've never felt good about it. I would die if he ever found out because I'm ashamed of my weakness.
He doesn't know anything about my pill popping, least of all the two times I've been in rehab, since I made sure we were broken up before I checked myself in.
I will tell him everything.
One day.
When I've totally kicked my addiction for good.
Until then, I'm going to have to carry this secret with me and pray like hell he doesn't find out.