I hear what he is doing. He is making a record. He is putting the asking on top of the doing so that later, in whatever apartment, in whatever year, he can come back to this and find the moment he asked.
“Okay,” I say.
“Fuck me.”
“Yes.”
“Now. Please.”
I push in. I push in slow because my body knows to and because his body needs me to. He makes a sound that is not the same sound he was making before. This one is lower, longer. He closes his eyes. I stop with just the head in.
“Okay?”
“Yes. Yes. Keep going.”
“Tell me if…“
“I’ll tell you. Reed. Keep going.”
I keep going. I push the rest of the way in, slow, watching his face. His mouth opens. His hand on my hip tightens. When I am all the way in he makes the sound, the small one, the oh one, the one that used to make me. The one that has always made me. I have to hold still for a second. I hold still. He opens his eyes.
“Hi,” he says.
“Hi.”
“Move.”
I move. I move slow. He wraps his legs around me. His hand goes from my hip to the back of my neck and stays there. He pulls me down. He puts his mouth against the side of my face, not kissing, just there, his mouth open against my temple, his breath against my skin, and he says, “Yeah.”
He says it the way he used to say it.
I lose a second. I lose a second because the yeah is something I had been telling myself I had remembered wrong, the same way I had been telling myself about the sound, and I had notremembered it wrong. The yeah is in my ear and his hand is on my neck and I am inside him and I have to stop moving because my whole body is doing something I cannot control.
“Reed.”
“Give me a second.”
“Are you…“
“I’m not. I am not coming. Just. Give me a second.”
“Okay.”
He waits. With his legs around me and his hand on my neck and his mouth against my temple. He doesn’t push. He doesn’t move. He waits the way he has waited the whole time I’ve known him — the thing he’s best at. Griffin, the patient one, the one who lets the silence go on until the silence is the answer. I breathe. I start moving again. I move slow and then I move less slow. He’s making sounds. I’m making sounds. His hand is on the back of my neck the whole time. The whole time he’s sayingyeahandReedandyeah. He isn’t saying it for me. He’s saying it for himself, confirming what he’s feeling. I’m the one inside him and the one hearing it. The most generous thing he’s done for me in two years.
I get a hand between us. I get my hand on him and he says, “God,” and his hips come up. He’s fucking himself between my hand and my cock. He’s taken over the rhythm. He’s decided. I’m not driving anymore. He’s doing this on his own. I’m the one being used by him to do it. That’s what does it.
“Griffin.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m going to…“
“Come on.”
“You first.”
“Reed.”
