32. Graham
32
GRAHAM
M ourning is supposed to be quiet. Quiet and gray.
But that’s not what it feels like in our apartment. It’s spring with full force. Blossoms on trees, and a sunny sky. The apartment is vivid with cheerful light for the first time since we moved in.
My mother has music or the television on constantly. Her cook and her housekeeper are here, dusting, baking, bustling in general. Avery is on the couch most of the time, my mother tucked in with her beneath one large blanket, while they watch cooking shows and reality shows, drinking tea and slurping soup.
I have no appetite, nor a clue what to do with myself when everything’s so handily being done for me. After three days of this, I’ve started doing push-ups in my bedroom until my arms give out, and I lie on the floor, blinking back the image of the tiny, lifeless pink thing I held and accidentally memorized—my son if only for a few heartbeats.
Or is it supposed to be forever?
They’d asked if he had a name. I remember thinking what kind of question is that? We hadn’t even known it was a boy until the doctor said as much. A name ?
Avery named him. Michael James Lawther. My mother selected the funeral home. The service was this morning. Tiny, only family. No friends of Avery’s came, and something about the clandestine nature of the minuscule service felt shameful. I didn’t cry this morning. I haven’t cried since I saw Silas in that hospital room where it felt like every tear I’d stored up for the rest of my life came out.
Avery is frequently teary-eyed and sometimes disappears into her room for half hours at a time. I assume she’s showering or crying. Maybe both. In those moments, my mother realizes I’m there and tries to tend to me, but I change the subject. I miss my sister, and I wish she were here. I’ve tried to call but haven’t heard back.
My father has come and gone a few times when he’s in the neighborhood. He and I will share a drink and some silence in my office, and he’ll quietly pat my back and go on about his day.
My text thread with Silas is nonsensical. Mostly where we are at any given time. He’s at the gym. I’m in my office. He’s got a bed to himself at his apartment. I’m drinking coffee in the kitchen. He reminds me to hydrate and eat. I promise I will. I sometimes even follow through. I ask him if my biceps look bigger and send a mirror selfie with my face out of the frame. He says yes and my shoulder looks good, too. I tell him I can see my abs. He tells me to eat a very large bagel. He asks me what kind of soup I like.
Absent from all our frequent exchanges is any mention of meeting up. I don’t know if that’s him or me—or whether we’re both waiting for the other to say can you get away? I can. I want to. I need to.
As excessive as the noise seems in the apartment, I dread the moment it goes silent. Every day, the silence becomes more inevitable. That moment when Avery and I will be forced to deal with each other. With what’s happened. With where we go from here.
Though I returned to New York sooner than expected, I haven’t missed much in Washington. A confirmation hearing that was going to go through whether I was there or not. A few meetings regarding a bipartisan piece of legislation, which my aide attended and sent detailed emails of. My responses are long-winded and rambling. Researched to death because what else am I going to do with these empty, idle hands.
To my surprise, it’s Silas who breaks first, five days in. Let me know if you’re able to get away, he texts. I have some things for you.
Since my mother and her staff are all still here, though Avery is doing physically well, I tell them I’m going out without specifying. Avery gives me a knowing look laced with disapproval and judgment, but my mother nods amiably.
Avery’s look stays with me on the ride to Chelsea and resentment builds in my chest. Did I deserve that? I decide I do. But it’s not as if we’ve had a single moment to comfort each other. And what would that look like if we did? Or once we do?
Just because she’s not ready to spread the news to her friends, which I don’t fault her for, I have someone with very broad shoulders to cry on.
The weight of loss is persistent, but it’s found a home in the bottom of my heart, where I expect it might survive forever. There’s guilt I wrestle with—that the loss isn’t heavier—that I hadn’t let myself really imagine our baby as a person until I held him in my hands. That I’d been happy about the pregnancy but hadn’t thought too far into the future and allowed myself to be excited and start planning for it. And there’s guilt about being relieved that I hadn’t done all that, too. If I had, the loss would have been unbearable. If he’d looked any more like a real baby it might have killed me.
And I hate myself for all these thoughts. I hate myself for every thought.
Silas opens the door for me and gives me a cautious look.
“I hate myself,” I tell him.
He takes my hand and pulls me inside. He’s wearing a simple black t-shirt that hugs his torso and soft, worn jeans that hang a bit loose. His tan is deeper than last time, I think. I assume he’s been in the sun, running in the park, breathing fresh air. Living.
“I don’t hate you,” he tells me once we’re closed inside another sun-filled apartment, but this one is quiet, something smells good in the kitchen, and Silas is here. And that makes all the difference.
“You would if you knew the kinds of thoughts I’ve been having.”
“I doubt it,” he says. “But if you wanna try me, I’m all ears.”
“I don’t need your ears.”
“What do y?—”
His words cut off when I drop to my knees and start unbuttoning his pants.
“Oh…”
He doesn’t protest, just runs his fingers through my hair while I focus intently on freeing him from his jeans and boxer briefs. His scent hits me first, causing saliva to pool in my cheeks. The hint of spicy musk enveloped in herbal soap. The faint note of laundry detergent that comes from freshly cleaned clothes. Silas.
His thick, flaccid length tells me I’ve caught him by surprise, but I feed it into my mouth inch by inch anyway, stuffing myself full of him until he’s all the way to my throat. I wrap a hand around his balls and give them a soft tug, eliciting a moan and a tighter grip on my hair.
He whispers, “Baby that feels so good, but…” He doesn’t finish the sentence as I draw my lips over his hardening shaft before swallowing him again.
“Wait…” he pleads after his thighs give a hard shake.
I draw away, his cock fully erect and aimed for the ceiling. He lowers himself to his knees and presses his mouth to mine. I shake my head. “I want it.”
“I know. I just can’t stand up—you’re gonna make me pass out.”
“Lie down then,” I insist .
His lips meet mine firmly. “I am.”
I wait impatiently as he shifts onto his ass and lies back on the floor, shoving his pants off and parting his thighs. I push his shirt up so I can see his abs. I bend over him, grab his now leaking cock and engulf it.
His back rises from the floor as his hands cup my cheeks. His thumbs run over the hollows and swells as his length moves back and forth over my tongue. I make too much noise when I give head, I’ve decided. The constant slurping, the moans of appreciation. I am a fucking puppy. A greedy one.
My cock tries to swell but can’t. It only aches and makes me ache everywhere. In my underfed state, Silas’s taste is everything. My need for him to fill me with it is fervent and hot.
His abs tense and relax beneath my spread palm, and his thighs intermittently tighten around my shoulders. His panting breaths feed me in a different way. A perfect break in the silence. That and my sloppy sounds as I try to suck him and my drool at the same time. I hold him deep, my tongue tracing veins and ridges, wrapping itself in circles around his crown before swallowing it again.
“God…oh my fucking God…”
Where’s my filthy lover, I wonder? Probably hiding. Being respectful. I wish he wouldn’t. I wish this didn’t feel different than that last night on the phone where he dirty talked me into a pounding orgasm.
“So close,” he whispers. “So fucking close.”
I go all the way down on him, let saliva spill from the corners of my mouth while I let my throat work his crown over and over again.
He grunts, and it sounds desperate, but then he holds me down by the nape of my neck and his body ripples around me, beneath me. He cries out as his cock pulses in my mouth and cum shoots down my throat. I break past his hold and suck him hard, my lips a firm ring around his length, milking him for more .
He gives me everything as his restless legs wrap around my body and his torso writhes on the gleaming wood floor. He’s gorgeous. Perfect. Mine.
I pull off him, bury my face in the crease of his thigh and sob. Once the dam breaks, every impossible emotion rushes out. His hands are in my hair again, worrying the strands, soothing my scalp. His breaths are shaky at first and then settle into something steadier. When they do, he shifts beneath me and tugs me this way and that until we’re on our sides, and he’s holding me through all the wreckage of what’s left.
His kisses land on my temple, my cheek, my neck. His hands move gently over me, touching what feels like everywhere, and it’s so right. So necessary and smart. Like he knows I’ve had nothing but pats on the shoulder for days, and my body is begging for containment and shelter. Acceptance.
His touch fills me better than any food or drink, and my crying jag ends with a soft whimper and sigh. As though he senses I’ve gotten it all out, he wipes my cheeks and touches his mouth to mine. I open for him immediately, needing the fullness of his kiss along with everything else he’s giving me.
When we pull apart, he says with a soft grin, “You could have seen me sooner, you know?”
I blink at him, adoring him. Worshiping him better than I ever did in all the masses I’ve ever attended. “Thank you for being patient.”
“Graham… Jesus.” He looks at me, all drawn brows, dark eyes and concern. “I’m in love with you. How much more convincing do you need?”
“I don’t know,” I groan, miserably. “Don’t you think you could do better than me?”
“Honestly, no. You probably could, but I’m fucking obsessed with you.” He squeezes my side. “You’re too skinny, though. I made soup. Chicken and dumplings.”
“That’s my favorite. ”
“I know,” he says. “That’s why I asked.”
He did ask, didn’t he?
“I’m not hungry,” I say.
“Then let’s work on your appetite. I can do that at least…”
He plants his mouth on my neck and sucks lightly, not hard enough to leave a mark—he’s always careful with my neck even when I wish he didn’t have to be. My nipples, however…he can do some serious damage there, and it makes me want to be naked.
“What did you get me?” I ask.
“Hm?”
“You said you got me something…”
“I made you soup. And you’ll get your present later. After you eat.” He runs a hand down my chest and over the front of my pants where his hand freezes.
My eyes pop open.
“What is this?”
He palms my caged cock and lets out a low rumble of what I think is pleasure. Meanwhile I groan with the helpless ache, the pinch on my balls as my dick tries to fill, the resulting ache in my ass as my prostate responds to the back up of stimulation. It’s insane to be wearing it with him, but I haven’t taken it off in days.
“Baby…how long?”
“I don’t know,” I moan. “Since I got home…”
“Fuck,” he whispers. “Why?”
“Sometimes it feels like you. Sometimes it just hurts. Sometimes it makes me go blank. I don’t know.”
He makes a pained noise and undoes my pants. “I need it off you,” he says, almost angrily.
I help him get my pants open and my shorts off. We both stare down at the metal trap. It looks like a birdcage. Instead of rings or a full shield like some I’ve seen, this one is more like a jail cell attached to a cock ring with vertical bars and a small padlock on top .
“Where’s the key?”
“In my pocket,” I say with a tremor in my voice because I’m anxious about taking it off. As much as it aches now, there’s an intense sensation that comes with its removal when I’m aroused. He’s already digging through my pants. “I—wait.”
“What?” he asks.
“Leave it.”
“Why? No. Why?”
“Silas…” I reach for him, needing to sit up to be closer.
“It’s not for when you’re with me,” he insists.
“I need you.”
He frowns, studying my face, looking deep in my eyes. And then understanding dawns. He licks his lips and cups my jaw, kissing me softly. “Bed,” he says, and I nod.