“I don’t really remember.”
“Doesn’t that bother you?”he said.
“Things don’t bother me as much when I drink.I wish I was drunk right now, actually.It’s easier to talk to you about sex when I’m drunk.”
“You seem to be doing okay.”
“I can only talk about it because I can’t see your face right now.”I breathed in deep.“For the past week or so, I’ve been getting up in the middle of the night to check on you.”
“How come?”
“I wanted to make sure you were okay and that you hadn’t left.”
“Why would I leave?”he said.
“I dunno.”
“I wouldn’t have paid you next month’s rent if I was planning on leaving.”
“I know it doesn’t make sense.I just wanted to say I’m glad you’re here—not just in my apartment but in my bed.Now, if I wake up in the middle of the night, I don’t have to get out of bed to see you’re okay.”
“That’ll save time.”
I snorted.
We didn’t speak for a while.Being with him like this reminded me of my roommate, Greg, from first year.Sometimes we’d lie awake talking till after midnight, laughing at stupid stuff.
“Sometimes, when I went to check on you,” I said, “I wanted to touch you.”
“I wouldn’t have minded that.I wouldn’t mind now.”
I wanted to touch him so much I could hardly stand it.But something else was pinging inside me, like a survival instinct.Like, that wolf looks so beautiful staring at me through the window.I wanted to be closer to it.But I didn’t dare open that window.Too dangerous.But now, that beautiful wolf’s nose was so close to the window it was misting the glass.
“I just want to talk right now, okay?I feel like the world’s going to end if I admit this, but I’ve already kissed you.It’s not like this is that much more, but it’s too far to do that with you, and you were right that night I got drunk.You said it would take me a long time to get used to this, and itis.And what I said I wanted to do to you then?Ireallywant to do right now.I’m, like, almost bursting just thinking about doing that.I wanna taste you so bad, but I can’t.”I couldn’t believe I’d said that.I’d cracked the window open was what I’d done, and the wolf’s nose was an inch away.
It hurt to look at him sometimes with the intensity, the immediacy, of what I felt.I was scared of the things I didn’t know about him.I wanted him so much, and that petrified me because it meant there were things I didn’t know about myself either.
“It’s okay.”He shifted in the bed.“I told you we’d probably have to fool around before we worked up to that.”
“I’m not ready to fool around either.”
“That’s okay too.”
“You said you fooled around with Edgar.Can you tell me what you did?”
“Are you going to get jealous again?”he said.
“No.You said you wouldn’t do it again.I believe you.I’m just curious what you meant by fooling around, like, if I knew what I was in for.”
“Well, we didn’t take our clothes off,” he said.
“You just touched each other through your clothes?”
“We didn’t touch each other.”
“But you said he made you shoot.How did he do that if he didn’t touch you?”
He sighed.“I’m not sure you’re ready to hear this.No, Iknowyou’re not ready to hear this.I’ve got this kink.Not many people are into it, and he indulged it for me, and I came from watching him do it.”
