8. Gage
8
GAGE
I have a daily arousal journal. Cool, eh? Here are my entries, and they’re quite eye-opening.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Alexei wore blue.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Alexei asked me an intrusive question and then blushed about it.
Nothing.
Alexei smiled at me.
Alexei texted me and I saw the blue heart.
Nothing.
Alexei showed up at my front door and told me we were sanding drywall.
Alexei breathed.
It’s eye-opening because the old me, the high me, would have gotten a stiff dick if my jeans rubbed just right, but the new me doesn’t really get turned on by much. Other than Alexei doing totally non-sexual Alexei things. I even got tasked with watching one pornographic video. My dick didn’t even get hard, and I shut it off three minutes in.
It begs the question: why the fuck was I so hooked on sex when nothing seems to turn me on?
Except Alexei breathing.
Am I broken? Am I too mind-numbingly sober to be aroused? Did all the drugs fuck up my sex drive? Because Alexei seems to be the only thing turning it on, and I’m not allowed to have him.
“It’s because you’re looking at sex through a new lens. Everything within you, right down to your chemistry and the way your brain’s chemical reactions happen, is changing and developing. Your body went through a year of detox and healing while you were at rehab, and now it’s learning to function in your old world again. You’ve never been aroused sober before. Or if you have, it was while you were young and hormonal and not having sex.” Natalie smiles at me. “You aren’t broken. You just aren’t used to this state.”
“How can a sex addict not have a sex drive?” I mean, this all seems like bullshit now. I can’t even get sex addiction right.
“Just like some medications inhibit sexual arousal, sobriety can, too. But that’s not the case with you.” She flips my journal to show me my entries. “Alexei arouses you. Is he the guy?”
I nod and don’t admit that he’s my sponsor’s kid, my only friend, and it would be detrimental to both if I actually slept with him.
“Do you know him, or is he a stranger?”
“I’m getting to know him.”
“Okay.” She closes the journal. “It’s chemical again. Hormonal. Getting to know someone is exciting, and if you feel good around this person, it feels good all over. Feeling good can lead to arousal, but it’s attraction that sparks true desire. What is it about him that turns you on?”
“Everything. Look at my lame entries.”
“Alexei breathed,” she reads, chuckling.
I don’t want to admit to her that he’s forbidden to me, which packs its own appeal. I don’t want to be that guy. I don’t want to use Alexei to get my rocks off, but I’m also selfish and impulsive, and when something is supposed to be off the table for me, I always want to put it back on the table. There are a hundred reasons why sleeping with Alexei is a bad idea, and only one good reason: because we both want to. But I still can’t decide if I’d do it because it’s thrilling or if I’d do it because I… actually thought it through and want to.
“Desires change and shift all the time. They’re different from obsessions, so make sure you’re noting that when you find yourself drawn to something or someone. The next time you find yourself aroused around this Alexei, I want you to assess your need for release. Are you just turned on but able to manage it? Are you wiggling on the spot, trying to get some friction going? Are you rushing off to a private room to handle it?”
She thinks I have dignity and class. I don’t.
Or do I? Because I haven’t done anything too shameful or embarrassing since I got home. Maybe sober me has some self-respect after all.
By the time I leave her office and meet Nathan for a meeting, I’m starving. He invites me back to their place for dinner, but I get this weird guilty conscience, like I need to ask Alexei’s permission first.
Gage: Your dad invited me to dinner with you guys. Yay or nay?
Alexei 3: If you come with the understanding that the meal will not have fried meat, we’re good.
“He say yes?” Nathan asks.
I hide my phone. “How’d you know I was asking?”
“Alex causes a certain look in the eye. You have it.” He watches me and I watch him. I don’t know what he’s looking for, but I’m hoping he doesn’t find it. I’m just trying to stand my ground and not buckle under the weight of being that guy who wants his sponsor’s son. “So? Coming?”
Gage: I hope there’s cheese then.
I pocket my phone and climb into Nathan’s truck. I don’t want to give him the chance to start asking questions, so I blurt, “I think I’m gonna quilt.”
“Quilt?”
“Yeah, as my hobby. Apparently, Marian with the hog is a quilter, and she’s teaching a few of the neighbours, so I might sit in on a few of those so I can practice in my own time.” Dextrous, finicky work might piss off my short fuse, but it’s good for my mind to get caught up on all the tiny details. I can see myself getting lost in that.
“Quilting,” Nathan muses. “Alright.”
And I guess that’s all there is to it because he doesn’t say more, and he doesn’t ask questions about Alexei. When we get to their broken but mending mansion, Alexei is standing in the kitchen—wearing blue with his black again—with paper bags and ingredients on the counter from one of those meal subscription boxes. The ones where the food comes portioned, and you still have to do all the work of cooking it. Lame.
“No cheese,” is all he says to me.
After Mediterranean chicken bowls, Nathan is on the phone in some far-off part of the house, and Alexei is judging my sanding skills. We already stripped the paint, and now we’re sanding the wood so we can restore it to its natural… wood. Whatever. Old house things.
“Am I doing it wrong?”
“I thought you were right-handed?”
“I am.”
He looks at the sanding block in my left hand. “It bothers me when I get small details wrong.”
“Well, excuse the fuck out of me.” I switch it to my right hand. “Wouldn’t want to bother you by holding the sander in the wrong hand. God, Alexei! Would you literally die if I told you I wasn’t actually a smoker?”
“And go straight to heaven,” he snips. “That’d be the best news of my life.”
“You need a more exciting life.” I do some sanding with my right, but despite being right-handed, it feels more natural in my left, so I switch back. “Tell me something exciting.”
“Well, remember I said I had a dentist appointment with a dentist who specializes in nervous patients?”
I snort. “Yeah. Was it exciting?”
“After the appointment, I booked my next one, just like I always do, and just by mere coincidence, it brings me back to the city on the very same day I have another appointment with a doctor who specializes in genetic testing.”
He looks at me.
I look at him.
When he doesn’t add more, I ask, “Oh, is that it?”
“Yes.”
I can’t help but smile. “Riveting.”
“Coincidences excite me.”
“You know what excites me?” I ask, clapping my hands and erupting a cloud of woody dust.
“Adrenaline, chasing a high, thievery, anything that provides dopamine, and the thrill of getting away with something,” he deadpans.
“It’s like there are no hidden parts of me.” I shake my head. “Guess this friendship has come full circle.”
Alexei, who is sometimes blunt and sometimes shy, doesn’t miss a beat. “Natural progression would suggest a full-run friendship should morph into something more.”
I don’t know if it’s what he says, the blush to his cheeks, or the confident look in his eyes while he’s being coy, but there’s one for the arousal journal.
Alexei got bashfully bold.
My eyes dip down to his lips. They’re parted, but as soon as I look at them, they clamp together like they have to physically restrain more brazen words from leaving them. The blush creeps up his neck, standing out against his light blue shirt, and his hands fidget with the sandpaper. The paint on his nails is chipped from sanding, and his black sweatpants have white handprints on them from where he’s wiped his hands.
Yeah, natural progression wants me to go there. I’m into him. Into not fully understanding him but liking the phase of learning his personality. I’m into the way he looks, harsh and subtle together, creative and reserved in one pale package. Tough but soft, lean and tall, cute but manly. I’m attracted to the way he knows what he wants despite never having had it before. I even like that he’s a control freak. It makes us so different and provides a spark of interest because I want to understand how he can control so many things that should be outside his control.
But I also like that it’s risky. That Nathan is somewhere in the house, ready and probably willing to catch us in the act. If I leaned forward and kissed Alexei, I’d do it until he moaned, drawing Nathan’s attention just to get the dopamine hit of committing a crime. The guilt and shame would come later, far later than needed. I like the idea of pushing his boundaries and tainting him just a bit, forcing him to give up a fraction of his control. It’s toxic, my need to ruin, and since Alexei is the only friend I’ve had sober since childhood, is the son of the man keeping me on track, and I really enjoy spending time with him, I can’t do it. I can’t act on the impulse to push his boundaries and bring him to my side of trouble.
“I have a knack for fortune telling,” I say, sanding again because I can’t look at him. “And the cards are telling me that if we go there, I’ll hurt you. Ruin your life. Ruin your relationship with your dad, potentially putting his sobriety at risk and damning him to disappoint you all over again. Which, in turn, will lead to your complete heartbreak over having to watch your dad struggle again. All the while, you’ll hate me, lose some of that control you have over yourself, and start eating fried meats or something.”
Alexei hums. “And you? Where will you be in this hypothetical future?”
“Dead, strung out, or in rehab for the ninth time.”
I hate this reality I’m building. Sadness overcomes me because I can never just have something nice without ruining it. But when Alexei touches me with his tattooed hand and I look at his face, he’s smirking. “I told you I wanted an old-fashioned romance. Love leading to death is about as old-fashioned as it gets. Real Romeo and Juliet style. You’re just attracting me more.”
“You better be joking. That is an unhealthy thought, Alexei!” Because oh my god, I want him. All of him. I wanna hold his hand and touch his lips to see if they are as soft as they look. I want to feel his short blue-blond hair and rub my cheeks all over it while just holding him against my body. I wanna smack a kiss to his forehead.
“I never joke about true love,” he says. “But I hear you.”
“Do you? What is it you’re hearing from all that?” I plant myself on my ass at the bottom of the staircase and level him with what I hope is a serious look.
He mirrors me. “That you don’t trust yourself yet. You will. It takes time, and you need time to prove to yourself that you have what it takes to be selfless. You think you’re greedy.”
“I am greedy.”
“Yes, but you’re aware of it. You just turned me down for selfless reasons. You’re protecting me and my dad.”
“And myself.”
“That’s responsible. Not greedy.”
“You aren’t feeling all rejected and broken?”
He scoffs. “I’m not giving up. You think I haven’t faced a million rejections in my life? I might look soft-hearted, but I’m hardened to a lot of things, Gage Rossum.”
Under my breath, and hopefully out of earshot, I whisper, “Please don’t harden to me too much.”