Chapter 14
Samuel
Samuel lay on his back, staring at the ceiling he couldn’t quite see in the gloom. His alarm had blared, been silenced, blared again, and finally been hurled against the wall.
He hadn’t gone to work. The thought of pulling on the armor of his suit, of knotting a tie around his throat, the throat Gael’s mouth had been on, was a physical impossibility.
The idea of the subway, of fluorescent lights, of the elevator bank, of the sixteenth floor… it was a mountain he could not climb.
He hadn’t made a decision. His body had made it for him. A deep, systemic lockdown. His limbs were heavy, filled with wet sand. His mind was a shattered pane, each shard reflecting a different horror.
Gael’s eyes in the second before the kiss, the taste of his mouth, the desperate keen he himself had made, the Director’s voice asking for repentance...
Eventually, he moved. He pushed back the rumpled duvet, the sheets cool and tangled. The air in the apartment was stale, silent but for the hum of the refrigerator. He walked, barefoot, to the closet. The sliding doors were a dull white in the half-light.
He opened them.
He didn’t turn on the light. He pushed past the hanging garments until he reached the back wall. He slid down, his back against the cool drywall, and drew his knees to his chest.
The air in the closet was cool, raising goosebumps on his skin. He reached out blindly, his fingers finding the worn, soft fabric of an old college hoodie discarded on the floor. He pulled it on. He wrapped his arms around his legs, making himself small, a tight ball in the dark.
Time lost its shape. It became measured in heartbeats, in the slow crawl of a sliver of light under the closet door as the sun moved outside. He drifted in and out of a shallow, troubled sleep that was no different from wakefulness. Both states were filled with the same looping reel.
The soft, searching pressure of Gael’s lips. The question in it.
Have you repented?
The hot, wet slide of his tongue, the taste of coffee and mint and want.
Your sin is ever before you.
The grip in his hair; a claiming that had made his very soul shudder.
Create in me a clean heart, O God.
The arch of his own back, the shameless, pleading cant of his hips seeking friction.
And renew a right spirit within me.
The sound he’d made. That raw, shattered keen of pure, animal need.
Cast me not away from your presence.
His stomach clenched, a hard, sick knot of guilt.
It was a betrayal of everything he had been taught, everything he had been broken to believe.
His body had responded with a fervent, traitorous yes while his mind now screamed abomination.
The pleasure had been real. It had been the most real, vivid thing he’d felt in years. And that was the worst sin of all.
He saw Gael’s face in the dark behind his eyelids; the intense focus, the dark hunger, the glimpse of something that looked like…
awe? Possession? He had let that man see the broken, wanting thing inside him.
He had opened a door and shown him the rot, and instead of recoiling, Gael had stepped inside.
Fear was a cold current under the shame. Fear of what came next. Fear of himself. Fear of the terrifying, yawning need that the kiss had unlocked; a need for that silence, for that anchoring control, for the feel of those hands on him, mapping his corruption and calling it good.
Confusion swirled, thick and choking.
Which was the truth? The peace of surrender, or the punishment that always followed?
The tender press of lips, or the scripture that condemned it?
He was a palimpsest, the old, damning text bleeding through every new sensation.
Paralysis was the only answer. He couldn’t go forward. He couldn’t go back. So he stayed in the dark, in the closet, curled tight around the vortex of his own ruin.
∞∞∞
A low, persistent buzz, followed by a short, melodic trill pierced the silence. It came from the floor just beside his bent knee, where he’d dropped his phone when he’d crawled in.
Samuel tightened his arms around his shins, pressing his forehead harder into his knees. The buzzing was an intrusion, a tether to the world outside his dark, self-made cell.
It stopped. For a handful of breaths, there was only the sound of his own heart, a dull, frantic drum against his ribs. Then it started again.
He didn’t want to look. But his eyes, adjusted to the dark, were dragged to the source. The screen lit up, a sudden, painful rectangle of blue-white in the shadows.
ALINA.
She would be at her desk, her brow furrowed, glancing at his empty chair. She was kind. She didn’t deserve to be pulled into this… this sickness.
The call went to voicemail. The screen went dark.
A minute later, a softer buzz. A text. The screen flashed alive again, this time with a different, briefer glow. The preview text appeared, white on blue.
Where are you? Are you okay?
He stared at the words until the screen timed out and they were swallowed by blackness.
His throat was tight. He knew he should pick it up.
He should answer, manufacture a lie. A family emergency.
A migraine. Something believable. But the thought of moving, of having to construct a coherent sentence, was a monumental task.
Another buzz. Another flash.
I told Wise you had a stomach bug, but you really need to check in.
A jolt, violent and electric, seized his chest. His heart seemed to stutter, then hammer against his sternum as if trying to escape. His breath hitched.
Gael.
What did he think?
Did he believe the lie?
Did he see right through it, the way he saw through everything?
Did he remember? The kiss, the taste, the sound Samuel had made before he’d ripped himself away… did it play in his mind, too?
Was he disgusted? Amused?
The panic was acute, a sharp blade of terror.
Every time Gael’s name surfaced in his thoughts, it brought the sensory memory with it.
The pleasure, and the devastating shame that followed.
It was a loop he couldn’t escape, and the phone, lying dark now beside his leg, was a direct line to the source of it all.
Another buzz. The screen flickered, the battery symbol glowing red.
Call me the second you can. Please.
He was causing her to worry. He was everything they’d said he was at The Hills: selfish, disordered, consumed by his own sinful impulses.
A hot tear tracked down his cheek, itching as it slid into the stubble on his jaw. He didn’t wipe it away. He stayed perfectly still, curled in the dark, watching the black, silent slab of his phone.
The phone, its battery spent, did not light up again.
∞∞∞
The sliver of light under the closet door had faded from pale afternoon grey to the deep, bruised blue of evening. His muscles, locked in the same position for hours, screamed with pain.
He moved because he could no longer stand not to.
He pushed the closet door open and crawled out on hands and knees, the carpet rough against his palms, and used the edge of the bed to haul himself upright. His legs trembled, weak and stiff.
His phone lay where it had died. He picked it up. He carried it to the bedside charger, plugged it in, and sat on the rumpled edge of the mattress, waiting. The little lightning bolt icon appeared. He watched it, his mind as blank as the dark screen.
When it had enough life to turn on, the notifications bloomed: three missed calls from Alina, the three text messages he’d already seen. Nothing else. No other name. A part of him he despised clenched in a knot of something close to disappointment.
He opened Alina’s thread. He stared at it until his vision blurred. He had to say something.
His thumbs felt thick, clumsy.
Hey. Sorry. I had a stomach bug. Must’ve passed out, slept all day. I’ll be in tomorrow. Thank you for covering for me.
He hit send before he could overthink it.
The reply came almost instantly, as if she’d been holding her phone.
Glad you’re okay. Don’t worry, I’ve got you. Just take care of yourself.
He stood, peeling the hoodie over his head, dropping it to the floor. His underwear followed. The evening air was cool on his skin. He walked naked to the bathroom, avoiding the mirror.
He turned the shower knob all the way to hot. Steam began to billow, clouding the glass door. He stepped inside.
He stood directly under the spray, head bowed, eyes closed, letting it pound against his skull and shoulders. It roared in his ears, a white noise to drown out thought.
But the thoughts came anyway, seeping through the din.
Tomorrow.
He would have to put on the suit. He would have to ride the elevator, walk the corridor, sit at his desk..
He would have to see him.
How would he look at him? Where would he put his eyes?
Would Gael acknowledge the kiss? Would he reference it with one of those slicing, quiet remarks?
Or would it be business as usual, the most terrifying option of all; a silent testament to how insignificant the moment had been to him, how easily he could consume a piece of Samuel’s soul and then return to his paperwork?
And what if he touched him?
The memory of Gael’s body pressing him into the door was so vivid Samuel’s knees weakened under the shower spray. He braced a hand against the slick tile.
He had no idea how he was going to do it. The mechanics of breathing, speaking, moving under the weight of that knowledge felt impossible. He was two people now: the one who had kissed back, and the one who was horrified by it.
Which one was supposed to show up for work?
The water began to run lukewarm, then cool. He didn’t move. He stood there, shivering now, staring at the water beading and streaking down the white subway tiles.
He turned the water off.
He stood in the dripping chill, the weight of the coming day settling on his bare shoulders, a dread so profound it felt like gravity increasing, pulling him down through the tile, through the floor, into a final, quiet oblivion.
But the floor held.