19. Alexei
19
ALEXEI
W e’ve been talking about Paul, but I can tell Gage doesn’t know what to say about him. And I’m not ready to push him on it, so now my legs are over his thighs, and he’s rubbing my feet, and the blankets of his attic bed are all bunched around us.
It’s so nice.
“I feel like we never talk about you,” he says to me. “Like I require too much focus and it leaves you quiet about yourself. Tell me all your problems, Alexei.”
“Not everyone has to have big problems that need fixing,” I state. “I don’t have any.”
“None?”
I shrug. “Just a bit of an attachment to my dad that probably isn’t healthy.”
“How come?” Gage massages my calves to encourage me. “What sort of attachment?”
“Just like, the kind that means I wanna be near him, and I sometimes worry about him dying like my mom did. It’s a fear I have, but I’m getting better at managing it. It helps to be closer with him now so that I know what’s going on.”
“I think that’s fair. It’s not unhealthy, it just means that you love your dad and want him to stay in your life.” Gage smiles, and I settle a little, knowing that he understands. “Do I cause you that kind of fear? I know I’m not your dad and we don’t have a lifelong history like you do with him, but I was an addict, so… do you worry about me leaving you or letting you down?”
I’m shaking my head to say no, but I stop to think about it. “No. Not yet anyway. It’s different with you because I haven’t been broken by you. The relationship is different, you know? If you hurt me, we break up and move on, but if my dad does… he’s still my dad. The expectations are different. Does that make sense?”
Gage nods and smiles at me. “It does. You can talk to me about it, you know. Anything. Anytime.”
“Okay, I have questions about other things then. Funner things.” I look at him for permission, and when he laughs and nods, I ask, “Did you come out? Back in high school?”
“Yeah, I guess. It was never a big thing with my family. They just knew. And Nick is gay, too.”
“Too? I thought you were bi.”
“Right, yeah. I am.” He laughs. “Only been with guys in the last while. You’re gay-gay?”
“Yeah.”
“And you knew it all along? Like you were a straight-away-gay?”
“What’s a straight-away-gay?”
He rubs my foot. “Like you knew right from the beginning you were into guys. Didn’t go through that trial period with girls.”
“Oh, no trial period, no. Knew it was guys pretty early on. So I had crushes but never really dated anyone. But when I was fourteen, I walked in on a girl naked in the showers.”
“What?” He laughs, eyes alight, smile bright.
“I went to this nerdy camp, okay? It was for gaming and cool dorky shit.” He blushes. “My neighbour signed me up, and I have no idea who paid for it, but I went there one time when my dad went to rehab. And we stayed in these cabin things, but the bathrooms were in another building. So I walked in to brush my teeth, and some girl was in there just… naked. It was the male bathroom, but… anyway, I have no idea why she was in there, but she just stood there, and I stood there, and it was so awkward. But… nothing. I looked. She was so pretty, and her body was nice, but… no attraction to it in a sexual way, so maybe that was my trial night. I looked and didn’t get the tingles.”
“And fourteen is a pretty tingly age,” Gage says, smirking.
“It is,” I agree. “How’d you know you were interested in both?”
“I think all is a better word. So maybe I’m pan. I don’t know. I lost my virginity to a girl. It was good. I didn’t have an obsessive compulsion at that age, so I slept around a bit, and it was fun, even though I was either high or partially drunk during. It wasn’t until a few years later that I hooked up with a guy for the first time. I mean, yeah, I knew I was into guys, but I’d never actually slept with one. I knew my way around a vagina at that point, you know?”
“No, Gage. I don’t know. I’m not very familiar with vaginas.”
He laughs. “Right, well, they’re pretty awesome. Anyway, I knew my way around a vagina, but not really a dick. So it was a fumbly experience, but then it got worse. I bottomed. And I had no idea what bottoming entailed at the time, so it hurt really bad despite the cocktail of drugs I was on, and I hated it. So yeah, didn’t go there again for a long time. Then I hooked up with someone who was pretty gender fluid and actually knew what they were doing, and I guess they taught me that bottoming can be way better.”
I smile at that. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“You telling me you’re a bottom?” I ask.
“This might sound weird, but I kind of like the feeling of not knowing that about each other yet. Like, we might be incompatible, but I feel like we’ll find a way to make it work. Right now, it’s just fun getting to know you slowly. Does that bother you?”
I shake my head and love this conversation. I also know that we’ll be compatible. I just know. “Tell me more about your depth of vagina knowledge. I’ve always wondered.”
Gage chuckles and gives me a female anatomy lesson I absolutely don’t need, but it’s the way he talks about women and people in general that makes me feel at ease with him. I’ve hung around some pretty set-in-their-vagina-hating-ways guys, and Gage is a nice breather.
When Gage asks me if I want to stay over and then offers to walk me home in the morning to get his meds anyway, I barely even panic. I’m not someone who is comfortable outside my own bed, but something about this one and the attic and the conversation we’ve just had in here makes me comfortable enough to stay. Gage even texts my dad for me to let him know I’m staying. Such maturity.
Gage gives me a toothbrush, and then he doesn’t leave the bathroom. Cole and Nick are laughing at things in the kitchen. Gage’s mom, Jenny, is chatting animatedly on the phone with Marian, and I’m sharing a bathroom and spitting into the same sink as Gage. I’ve never lived in a busy house before.
“You get used to it,” Gage says, rinsing his mouth. “The noise.”
I kind of like it, to be honest. But maybe only on occasion.
And I like the matching pyjamas we’re wearing, too. Both decked out in orange and black plaid, white t-shirts from Gage’s drawer, we laugh our way into bed.
“Do you have a side?” I ask.
“Yeah, usually right in the middle.” He settles himself there, pulling my back against his chest. A minute later, his boner pokes me in the ass. “Shit. Maybe I’m better at being the little spoon. Switch.”
So we roll over, and I snake my arm around his middle. A minute later, my boner is poking him in the ass.
“Maybe we should sleep on our backs. Or face each other.” He rolls over until we’re face to face. The room is dark, but the streetlights come in the picture window. “Why blue?” he asks. “I love the blue.”
“It’s just my favourite colour,” I say, our knees knocking and our hands playing together in between our bodies.
“Is it?”
“No,” I sigh. “I mean, it is now, but… my dad got me a light blue hoodie. I have no idea why he got it for me because I only ever wore black.”
“Go on.” Gage smiles, hands all over me.
“And I was moody at the time. It was right around his first year sober. So, seven-ish years ago. I still didn’t trust him, and when he gave me the blue hoodie, I wanted to throw it in his face that he didn’t know me at all. Wouldn’t even take the time to get to know his own son. So, like I do, I went overboard. I painted my nails light blue, dyed my hair, wore the hoodie everywhere just to shove it in his face. Like, hey, look how fucking different I look. Notice me now?”
“And he did.”
“He did,” I admit. “He commented on the blue and said it made me look nice. Happier. And for my birthday the next year, he got me a black hoodie. Maybe just to prove that he knew me. I dunno, but I came to like the blue. It’s just a rinse for my hair, so whenever I walk out of the bathroom after just having redone it, it’s this petty little inside joke with my dad that makes us both smile.”
Gage laughs, and our bodies inch closer together. His pillow is uncomfortable as shit, but to be honest, I don’t feel very uncomfortable. “And the septum piercing? So fucking sexy, but what made you get it?”
“I have a friend, you know.”
“Do you?” He laughs. “Tell me more.”
“He has an older brother who is in a band, and basically, I just got it because he has one and I thought it was cool.” I shrug. “For how deep I try to be, sometimes I’m pretty shallow.”
“Hey, wanting to be like the cool guy in the band is like a rite of passage. And the symbols?” He brings my left hand up, kissing my tattooed knuckles and the word ‘right’ on the top.
“They’re actually quite impressive, I must admit. They’re a code. Each symbol represents an equation that correlates to a letter. Like I said, I went to a nerdy camp, and one summer we made encryptions and things. So, my equations and codes are only known to me, so I’m the only one who knows what it says.” I flip my hand. “And the right is which direction to read it. Instead of straight across my knuckles, you start with the left hand and read from the right, and then go to the right hand and read from the right. Do you think I’m cooler now?”
“So fucking cool,” Gage agrees, pressing his body against mine. “I think nerdy intelligence is sexy.”
“I can tell.” My hips press against his, but the mood is still simmering, gentle. I like that he doesn’t ask me to tell him what it says. “Why the mechanical things on your chest?”
“Because I mixed uppers with downers and blended it with MDMA and came out of a tattoo shop with them.” He frowns. “I’m not deep either. Just stupid and compulsive.”
“At least your stupidity and compulsiveness resulted in nice art. Better than the Chinese symbol for cat or something.”
Despite the conversation, we’re wrapped around each other and our cocks are grazing. Gage’s knee slips between my legs and mine hooks over his hip, and now we’re just firmly rubbing like it’s no big deal. But it’s a huge deal, and my face is hot!
“Is this okay?” I ask him, trying not to breathe too hard.
His forehead nods against mine. “Yeah, it’s okay. I’m okay. I’m really okay.”
“Can I touch you?”
Against my jaw, he breathes, “Yes.”
I reach between our bodies, shoving my pants down just enough to free my cock. When I do the same for Gage, he lifts a bit to make it easier for me. His ragged moan as soon as my hand lands on his dick is so strained, so I tilt his chin up by nudging him with my head.
“Still okay?”
“Y-yeah. I wanna feel everything. Every part of you. Go slow, Alexei.”
I don’t even know what I have planned, but I move slowly. I explore the way his hard cock feels in my hand, warm and solid and with a bit of its own mind. I take it slow while I learn the way he trembles and the sound his throat makes when he tries to hold back a groan. I’m goddamn glacially slow when I shift my hips forward and wrap my fingers around the both of us, sweating in my plaid pyjamas.
“You have no idea how good this feels,” Gage speaks into my neck, voice even more abrasive than usual.
“I do, actually. I’m feeling it, too.”
“It’s been over a year since I felt another body next to mine.” He reaches down to skim his hand over my hip. It ends up on my ass, and he pulls me forward, rocking us together. Slowly. “Skin to skin. You feel amazing.”
So that we really can be skin-to-skin, I line us up and then let go. Our cocks rub together, hips grinding, his hand trying to control the pace and keep it slow. I know sex and penetration are the ultimate goal for most people, and I enjoy it myself, but this… this slow rub and dry hump is fucking everything. It’s fresh and terrifying because it’s a brand new experience for both of us. It’s a sexy way for our bodies to learn to work together. It’s attraction and an undeniable pull, a build-up that isn’t rushed or forced.
And holy shit, it’s hot as hell. It’s better than sex. It’s… more intimate.
His hand leaves my ass and weaves into my hair, our bodies creating friction all on their own. “Don’t let me kiss you,” he rasps. “Not while I’m horny. Not yet.”
Then he yanks my hair and forces my face up, nose to nose with him. Our lips brush, craving a kiss that isn’t allowed because he respects my take on kissing. I want it so badly, but I want his meaning behind it even more.
“I’m gonna come from this,” he admits. “Fuck, Alexei.”
So I breathe against his lips, close my eyes, picturing what it will feel like to kiss him, and move my hand down to his ass. I squeeze it, rocking him forward. The heads of our cocks slip and slide together, spreading precum everywhere. Our arms on the bottom are haphazardly numbing in the middle somewhere, but it doesn’t matter because everything else feels so good, so right.
“I want to feel it,” I tell him, so into this that my body won’t stop moving. “I want to see you and feel you when you come.”
“Come with me so I don’t get selfish.” He pulls our mouths together. Groans. Backs off and pants against my slick lips. “Where the fuck did you come from, Alexei?” he asks, but I’m pretty sure it’s rhetorical.
In my head, I’m telling him I’m his soulmate.
Slickness coats our cocks and stomachs, and the blanket is way too warm, but neither of us moves it. When Gage grinds his hips, I moan against the corner of his mouth, grinding right back. His knee is still between my legs, and he hikes it up, pressing it all the way up to my ass, making us crush together perfectly. We both moan, and then Gage is biting my lower lip, and I’m shaking all over again, and…
“Gage.”
He chokes, tightening his hold on the back of my head. “Mmmm,” he moans. “Fuck, Alexei. Fuck!”
A burst of yellow blinds me from behind my eyelids, and Gage’s long, drawn-out moan is the hottest thing I’ve ever heard. But when I feel his cock twitch against mine, and he presses us together so hard that our sticky abs rub together, I lose all sense of colours and blindness because this is bliss. My cock throbs, my cum joining his, a mingling of moans and panting breaths and shaking bodies, all meshed together in an attic bed. Gage dips his head, lips landing on my neck to suck the skin beneath my jaw. I breathe in his hair, the smell of cigarettes and detergent and sex.
We stay together, entwined and tangled, until my heartbeat isn’t threatening a heart attack and his lungs are settling down from the workout. My head on his, his face in my neck, arms wrapped and numb.
“Are you okay?” I check in. “Happy? Content?”
I feel him smile against my neck. “So happy.” He pulls back, looking at me with those big brown eyes and a lazy grin. “You’re something else, you know that?”
“Something else like what?”
“Just magic or something. This is magic. Us.”
Because we’re soulmates. “I know.” I smirk at him.
When we separate, everything is a mess, and we laugh a little while cleaning up, changing into clean clothes and leaving the sheets because they aren’t bad. I’m yawning, sedated and relaxed, but Gage pulls out his journal, and I get a second wind.
“Ready for this part, or want me to do it on my own?”
I prop myself up and just stare at him. His therapist says we aren’t allowed to use the journal as a prop to entice one another, but she more than encourages us to write in it together after the fun is over. “So ready for this part. This might be my favourite part.” Like I said, actions and the reasons behind them intrigue me. I can’t wait to sex journal with Gage.
He shakes his hand out. “My whole-ass arm is numb.”