I moved my hand up to where his was on his chest and touched it, then up to his face and put my thumb in his mouth. He sucked it in and groaned, then closed his eyes and threw his head back, lost to his pleasure. After a few more strokes, he doubled over, a look of exquisite pain on his face. When it was over, he slumped on top of me and turned to kiss me again. For a few minutes we touched lazily, running our hands all over each other. We were a mess, but I didn’t want to move.
We shifted around on the couch so he was wedged against the back, looking down on me, as I lay my head on the armrest. He was beautiful, his skin flushed red, and his lips swollen from my kisses. In that moment everything about Nesto seemed amplified to me, like my senses had woken up for his skin.
He was running his hand over my chest and suddenly said, “Tell me more about Honduras.”
I didn’t want to ruin the mood by talking about some of the sad things that came to mind, so I stayed quiet as I thought of what to say.
“Honduras was beautiful and a little heartbreaking, but mostly beautiful.”
He hummed as I touched the tattoo on his chest. It started at his rib cage and took up most of his left pectoral muscle. It was a forearm that ended in a half-open hand, holding up a beating heart, right over his real one. The heart bore the stars and stripes of the U.S. flag, and another flag I supposed was the Dominican one, its colors also red, white, and blue. They blended into each other, so it was hard to tell where one started and the other one ended. Beautifully done with red, white, and blue drops dripping all the way down the arm.
“Tell me about this first, it’s quite something,” I said as I ran my fingers over it.
He put his hand over mine and came down pressing our mouths together, like we couldn’t move on to the next thing until he’d kissed me.
“You don’t like talking about yourself very much. I’ll let you get away with changing the subject…for now.” I groaned and he laughed. “I got this one done with the guys. We all have the same one, well theirs have their own flags. We got it from the same artist, the year we all turned twenty-one.”
I ran my hand over it again, admiring the art and his strong, proud body. “Why did you guys decide to get it?”
He smiled as he touched his chest on the spot where the tattoo was. “We were all in college back then and talking a lot about how hard it felt to navigate our worlds sometimes. We were American, but we had this other side to us, too.” When he spoke, his eye blazed with passion.
I was spellbound.
“It always seemed like for one to thrive the other one needed to be left behind. What we wanted was for them to blend. We were American, but our skin, our names, gave us away as strangers. Our struggle was in whether we could find the balance of feeling like we belonged here without letting go of our roots.” He grimaced then said, “When all you hear is how your people are criminals, or that they’re only here to mooch off the government, it can be hard to lift that side up, you know? But our parents came here with nothing and worked hard. Gave us good lives. Wehadto be proud of that, of them. So, we got the tattoos to remind ourselves we were always both.”
“Youshouldbe proud.” I certainly understood what it was like to feel as if you were being pulled in two different directions. Once again my mouth started moving before I could think of what I was saying.
“Our church was really conservative and our pastor was horrible. He used his pulpit to spew out the most bigoted vitriol. Every Sunday we sat there hearing him rant about whatever group of people or thing he’d decided was the latest menace threateningour way of life.” I shuddered at the memories of him shouting about AIDS and how people deserved to die, but Nesto’s warm and steady hands on me kept me talking. “He spent hours up there bellowing about sin and retribution. After I realized I was gay, I’d sit there sick to my stomach listening to him talk about all the ways in which I was an abomination.”
I felt Nesto’s head shaking above mine. “God that sounds awful. I’m so sorry you had to go through that.”
I tipped my head up to look at him and his eyes, which usually sparkled with humor, were full of concern. I lifted my hand to touch his face again.
“Thanks for saying that. I was terrified people would find out about me. That’s why I decided to go to Honduras. I thought if I got away for a while then maybe I could breathe, you know?”
Nesto nodded silently and squeezed his arms around me.
How could he feel this familiar, this comforting already?
“I got there and just the distance from all of it felt like such a relief. Even though the missionaries who ran the church down there were even more intense than the people in our home church, at least I could travel and get to know Honduras. Safety is an issue down there, not just for tourists or expats, but everyone. Especially young people in poor families are so vulnerable.” I sighed. “Being there helped me gain a lot of perspective about what was important, and of how many choices I actually had. It’s also so beautiful there. Some places so lovely they took my breath away.” I exhaled, worn out from bringing back things I hadn’t thought of in so long.
“Sounds like you were dealing with so much all on your own Jude. That takes a lot of courage.”
I scoffed remembering those times, “I didn’t feel very courageous back then. I didn’t come out of the closet for a long time after I left Honduras, but when I got back, my perspective had shifted. I was sure I wasn’t the issue. The problem was how our church and our community chose to look at the world. Like something scary we needed to either control or keep at bay. I was afraid of losing my family, so I stayed, until I couldn’t anymore. But I knew there was nothing wrong with me.”
Nesto’s arms were tight around me as he spoke. “You’re fucking right about that. You’re amazing, and I can’t tell you how glad I am you took pity on me and came over tonight. I don’t think I could take one more Netflix binge with my momand sister.” I could tell he knew how drained I was from this conversation and was so grateful for his attempt to lighten the mood. I looked up at him again not bothering to hide the smile on my face. “I’m glad I came over, too, although Netflix with your mom and sister sounds nice.”
He gave me that cheeky grin that made my knees weak. “It is, but this is better.”
I didn’t respond, just nodded and pressed against him, because with the way I was feeling, I was going to say something ridiculous.
I felt weightless in Nesto’s arms, like I could let go of all my hang-ups.
“You feel so good,” Nesto said in a husky voice and sighed. “I wish I didn’t have to get up so early.”
Immediately I started trying to dislodge from him.
“No wait, I’m not throwing you out. You’re good right here. Stay.”
