“If there’s nothing wrong with living in your slut era, there’s nothing wrong with the other side too,” Jonah said, cutting me off. “And there’s no shame in what happened to you, Micah. None of that was your fault. You know that, right?”
I knew he was right. About all of it. My therapist had been saying those same words for years. But he also didn’t have to live with the weight of it. He understood what it felt like to be infantilized and mistreated, laughed at and used like some kind of experiment by people with a disability fetish.
But he didn’t know what it was like to have his power taken away. To be pinned down. To be gagged and laughed at and made to feel entirely helpless. He didn’t know what it was like to carry that with him and to let it shape every fucking experience after. To relieve it every time someone touched him.
My relationship to sex, and to my body, would always be different thanks to that.
I’d found Vanya, and he made me feel good. He made sex feel safe. But being with him hadn’t changed me. It hadn’t made me into a different person. I knew deep down there would be days where I couldn’t give Vanya what he wanted.
That my body would still just…not perform in the way I wanted it to. I wasn’t going to be some raging, horny hockey player ready to fuck Vanya anytime he wanted. And Vanya didn’t let me feel like I was wrong or broken. He gave me the space to give and take what I needed.
“Micah? Tell me you know that?” Jonah asked.
I realized I hadn’t said anything. “No. No, I do, but…I’m still struggling, okay? And I didn’t think I could handle trying to deal with everyone’s questions, and their apologies, and all that other bullshit. And I know for goddamn sure that I will not be able to handle the world knowing personal things about me if he releases that video.”
“So we make sure he doesn’t release the video,” Jonah said, like it was that simple. Like it was just some thing I hadn’t thought of.
“It’s not that easy. He’s dangerous,” I said.
Jonah cleared his throat. “Dangerous how?”
“He’s unpredictable.” I began to shake again at the thought of what he did to my house. To the average person, they might have seen it as some ridiculous prank, but I knew for a fact Hunter didn’t.
He knew what he was doing.
He knew how badly that would ruin me. Heknew how that would destroy what little safety I felt in my own home.
“Micah—”
“The truth is, I don’t know what he’s capable of. He’s progressed to breaking into my place and rearranging everything.”
Jonah swallowed thickly. “What?” The word came out a ragged whisper. “What do you mean rearranging everything?”
Pressing my hands over my face, I took in a ragged breath. “He moved my kitchen table like eight inches. He rearranged every single thing in my kitchen and peeled all my talking pen labels off my stuff. He put my couch on a different wall, he put my bed in the center of the room and moved my dresser. I didn’t get as far as the bathroom before I lost it, but I can only imagine what he did in there.”
“I will kill him.” Jonah’s voice was shaking. I heard him swallow so thickly it clicked in his throat. “I willflayhim alive.”
“He’s not worth the prison sentence, Jonah. I promise you, he’s not.”
Jonah was silent for a moment, and then his hand found mine. He squeezed my fingers gently, and when he loosened them, he didn’t let go. “I’m still pissed at you. I’m pissed at you for last year for not telling me this shit was going on back then, before it got this bad.”
“I know?—”
“I’m pissed at you for acting like an ass instead of just coming clean so we could help you.”
“Jonah—”
“I’m pissed as fuck that you let me say all that shit about you and sex for all these years…”
“In my defense,” I said, cutting him off, “you didn’t actually have to say all that shit about me and sex. That was your choice. Even if Iwasfucking anyone who crossed my path, you didn’t have to help make it my whole identity.” Now my voice was trembling because the truth was, even if everyone knew, it was too late.
I was the fuckboy of the PPHL. My reputation had been started by me, fueled by everyone else, and embraced by the fans. I didn’t want to have a big coming-out moment. I didn’t want to do a bunch of fucking PSAs.
I didn’t want to have to explain to everyone I knew that they got it all wrong because that sounded exhausting and maybe even worse than enduring the snide comments and bad jokes about my dick.
Jonah cleared his throat and removed his hand from mine. “I thought…I thought you didn’t care.”
“I didn’t. Not always. At first, it was like a mask, you know? It’s getting harder to handle it now.”
