Chapter 23
TWENTY-THREE
BENJI
NOW
I don’t remember saying that. I really don’t. I wouldn’t have said that.
I would have never even thought those things about Dion, let alone said them out loud and certainly not to Miles. But I believe Dion. He heard what he heard and I believe that somebody hearing such a thing would remember it better than the teenage fool who said them to impress a pseudo friend.
How I wish I’d told Miles what I really thought about Dion. About how much I liked him. About how he was the one I was really into that year, not him and his pathetic after-training snogging sessions. But I was too scared.
I’m not scared now.
“I know this doesn’t count for anything, but I’m sorry I said that,” I say.
We’re both sitting on the sofa in our underwear and the slight chill in the air is making our nipples hard and patches of goosebumps corrugate our skin.
But neither of us move to find more clothes, even me with my bag completely on display.
We need to have this conversation. “I’m really sorry.
I don’t remember it and I honestly can’t imagine thinking such things but I believe you.
It’s just, my memories of that night are very different.
Where exactly were we when you heard me say it? And when?”
“You were outside, at the end of the ball, waiting for Miles’ mum or dad to pick him up. He was really drunk and had vomited everywhere on the ground.”
Vomit. Yes, I remember that part.
“And where were you?”
“I was standing behind both of you, just outside the gymnasium doors. You couldn’t see me. And that’s when I heard what I heard.”
I try to recall more of that night. It feels like I’m jumping and straining to catch helium balloons that are flying out of reach.
“I don’t remember that but I remember seeing you earlier. When you waited for me outside the disabled toilet.”
A flash of recognition alters Dion’s face. “Oh yeah, I remember that too. You had a bad stomach.” His eyes dip to my bag. “Was that when your Crohn’s problems started.”
“Yes. Kinda. In truth, I’d had problems for almost a year before. I just kept putting off going to a doctor. But I did after that night. In France. Mum took me to her old family doctor and they actually sent me to hospital for tests and investigations.”
“And you got your diagnosis?”
“Yes, eventually. I’ve always wanted to thank you for that.”
“Me? Why me?”
“Because you were the one who prompted me to get it looked at. You were the first person who discovered my secret and you made me realise how stupid I’d been ignoring it.”
A half-smile quirks Dion’s lips and I want to know what is prompting it but it disappears just as quickly as it comes.
“So if you thought that about me, why did you then … say not very nice shit about me?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “It doesn’t make any sense because I really liked you back then.
I was sad that night that I didn’t get to say a proper goodbye to you.
But I had to look after Miles and then I went back to look for you but you’d already gone.
That’s right. Your friend, Raquelle, told me you’d already left. ”
“Raquelle?” Dion looks surprised. “You spoke to Raquelle?”
Warmth floods my cheeks and the tips of my ears. “Yeah, I actually gave her a message for you.”
“A message? What message?”
“That …” Embarrassment floods me. And Dion’s stern frown scares me a bit too much. He really doesn’t know. Raquelle didn’t tell him that I liked him back then. “Just to say goodbye.”
His eyebrow arches but he doesn’t say anything. “We had a fight that night. She was drunk. I was in a shitty mood. We never really made up properly. And then I transitioned and our friendship was never really the same.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
He shrugs. “Shit happens.”
“What did you fight about? That night?”
“I don’t know. Probably something to do with that twat Miles. She was obsessed with him that year.”
My whole brain lights up with a new, brilliant memory. “That’s who I was talking about!” I point at Dion. “It wasn’t you. It was her. Raquelle.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was telling Miles to leave her alone. That she was vulnerable or just, you know, not to be messed with. Not that you should mess with anyone but she always seemed so … fragile. He was such a dick to lead her on.”
A frown settles across Dion’s forehead and he goes very, very quiet for what feels like hours but is likely only a little more than a minute. It kills me to wait patiently, but I do.
“Oh. Fuck.”
“You believe me?”
“I … It makes sense.”
I lay my hand on his leg and it’s warm and thick and solid, and covered in curling dark hairs and tattoos of animals, symbols, words and flowers.
God, I love his body. “You have to believe me. The way I felt about you back then. I would have never said such things about you. I know I probably shouldn’t have said them about anybody, but I would have never said them about you.
I … I really liked you that year. A lot. ”
He glances down at my hand on his leg and then looks up at me, and slowly, his frown smooths out. “And how about now? How do you feel about me now?”
I squeeze his leg and lean closer to him. “I feel like I’ve found a friend I thought I’d never see again. And that maybe, maybe I could fall in love with him.”
Dion blinks at me and looks slightly alarmed.
Fuck, I’ve said too much. I revealed my cards much too soon. I open my mouth to … I don’t know what — retract my statement, apologise, explain myself — but Dion beats me to it.
“That’s a lot for somebody like me to take in,” he says slowly, carefully. “But I don’t hate it. I don’t hate it at all.”
I couldn’t stop my smile even if I tried. “So, you want to go for coffee some time when we finally get out of here?”
Dion returns my smile. “I would like that.”
My hand glides up his thigh as I lean even closer for a kiss. He looks down at it rather than at my incoming lips. “I would also like to pick up where we left off,” he says.
“Oh, you want both? You want tonight and a possible future?”
He nods. “I want tonight and a possible future.”
It couldn’t be clearer and it couldn’t sound better. I practically jump on top of him, pressing him back against the sofa, as I slam our lips together.
And then, it’s on.
We are a tangle of limbs. We are hot, breathless kisses. We are roaming hands and shared moans.
I’ve never wanted somebody so much. I’ve never felt so wanted before. I don’t know if it’s the contrast with how low and lost I’ve been feeling since Mum passed, but I never want this feeling to end and it doesn’t have to. He said he wanted coffee. He said he wanted a possible future together.
It’s that reminder that has me moaning into his mouth while his tongue assaults mine.
“God, I love your noises,” he tells me, lips moving against mine. His hand grips the back of my head, pulling at the short hairs there. “Never hold them back, okay?”
“Okay,” I agree all too easily. To reward me, he shoves me so I’m sitting pressed up against the back of the sofa, and then he’s climbing on top of me.
“Tell me if I’m too heavy,” he says as he settles astride my lap.
“You’re not.” I wrap my arms around his middle. “You’re not.”
“And if I’m hurting you in any way, or your bag.”
I hold him tighter, so tight that he presses my bag back against me, locking it in place. I feel pressure but no pain. “You’re not.”
His hands cup my face and he stares into my eyes as he starts to rock his body against mine, slowly lining up our groins. When his warm softness presses up against my hard length, I close my eyes and groan, loudly. “Fuck, that feels so good.”
He ruts harder against me. “Yeah,” he agrees and there’s a breathless hint that he’s not as completely composed as he wants me to think he is, and that is somehow more special than if he was utterly in charge right now.
“Fuck, I wish there were no clothes between us,” I say in a voice that borders on being whiney.
Dion gives me a sly look. “Of course you do, which is why we’re going to stay like this for a little longer.”
“Ugh,” I grunt. “Fuck. Please, Dion, I … oh, God.”
He stops moving at the most perfectly devastating moment, just mere seconds away from an inevitable orgasm.
“Not yet, Benji, not yet.”
Benji. He calls me Benji, like he used to. He was one of the only people at my school who did. And I didn’t book the tattoo appointment under that name. He remembers. He remembers.
“Can I make you come?” I blurt the question out eagerly. Dion looks momentarily taken aback by it too.
“Oh, you will,” he says, regaining composure.
“No, now. I want to get on my knees and make you come in my mouth,” I push him gently away from my hard-on.
“Well, when you ask so nicely.”
In a few seconds, we’re in a different position. Dion is sitting down and I am kneeling between his legs, my hands on the waistband of his boxers. I look up at him, a pleading expression on my face. He nods, and I slide his underwear down his thick legs.
“Fuck,” I moan when I can see him. He’s all dark curls and juicy berry lips and pink flesh. I can’t stop myself from diving down and inhaling him at the crease of where his thigh meets his pussy. He smells like soap and musk and my new favourite meal.
I should be panicking. It’s been a long time since I’ve given oral.
It’s been even longer since I’ve given it to somebody I care so deeply about, but I’m too consumed with lust for Dion that not even a stampede of elephants pulling me away from him could stop me from exploring him with my tongue, my lips, my nose.
His cock is hard and I waste no time taking it in my mouth and swirling my tongue around it while I suck gently, and then not so gently.
He groans and shakes, so I do it again. And again and again and again.
“Shit!” His hips buck into my face and I smile into his slick flesh.
He tastes salty and sweet and creamy, all in one delicious mouthful.
I keep playing with him, sucking and licking and even gently scrapping my teeth over the top of his beautiful cock.
And although they’re quiet, hissing sounds — not loud, desperate moans like I make — he keeps cursing and rutting into my mouth.
“Shit, Benji, I’m close, I’m so fucking close,” he tells me after many blissful minutes of me worshipping him like this. His hand is lost in my hair and his blunt fingernails dig into my scalp in a way that feels possessive and gives me just the right amount of pain.
I don’t say anything back. I simply keep his dick in my mouth and I hollow my cheeks out as I suck and keep my tongue swirling in circles around the tip.
And then his pussy seems to get hotter and wetter against my lips and my chin and he pulls so hard on my hair, tears come to my eyes.
But I don’t care. I love it. It’s the most perfect sharing of his orgasm with me and I fear I could become addicted to him giving me pain while I give him pleasure.
“Oh, fuck,” he gasps after long seconds of thrusting into my mouth. And then, when the switch flips and the pleasure becomes discomfort, he pushes me away from his dick.
“Good?” I ask, wiping my mouth.
My stupid question earns me a thin stare. “You know it was.”
“I want to do it again.” My eyes are back on his pussy as I lick my lips, searching for traces of him.
“Maybe later,” he says. “But now, stand up.”
It wasn’t me who just had a body-clenching orgasm but even so my legs are weak as I get to my feet.
I feel a quick beat of embarrassment at how my erection juts out inside my boxers, but that disappears the moment Dion notices it and uses a hand on my butt cheek to yank me closer to him as he shifts forward.
His face lines up with my dick perfectly and I can practically hear the fresh flood of blood that surges to my genitals just at the way he looks at me.
“I’m going to suck you,” he says, pulling my underwear down so unbearably slowly. “And you’re not allowed to touch me.”
I think about his hands in my hair as I went down on him. It feels cruelly unfair. “But, I—”
Dion looks up into my eyes over the outline of my colostomy bag. “Trust me.”
I exhale and immediately reply, “I trust you.”
“Hands behind your back and eyes on me,” he says, and I obey. “I’m going to make you feel so good.”