Page 63 of Mr. Match

Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?

Around her bike they are the completion of a journey.

I put my marker down and let out a sigh. Katya opens her eyes. “Are we done?” she asks.

I shake my head slowly. “No, darling. We’re just getting started.”

I fuck her for real then. For the first time since we met, I fuck her for real. Everything that came before this moment is junk. Trash. Pretending. Fake. And everything that will come after is genuine.

I place my hand over the tattoo just above my cock. The last promise I made that last night we spent together as kids.

You express me better than I express myself.

You shall be more to me than my poem.

And yes, I was a kid too, even though I was twenty-four. Everything that came before that night I inked my promise on her body was childhood. Silly wants and wishes. Delusions and hallucinations. The world of dreaming just for the sake of dreaming. Younger Oliver and Younger Katya are gone.

There is only here and now.

I kiss her when we come. Her moans filling my mouth like my cock fills her pussy. The music playing on repeat. The sex tape that is so much more than a sex tape. It is art and I would play it in public to pay homage to our love, if I could.

I don’t care that she’s here to betray me. I don’t care that she’s made a deal with the devil. I don’t care what my friends think of that. And I don’t care about the consequences.

I love her.

The heart wants what the heart wants.

I will throw everything away to keep her. I will betray everyone I know. I will make my own deal, sell my own soul if I can just walk beside her in this life. Hold her hand as we face the reality of our decisions together. Give her a home in me, in my love. A safe place where no such thing exists.

I know she is filled with lies. Lies people told her. Lies she has told me and lies she has told herself.

And I don’t care.

I have tried to be in control of things for as long as I can remember. It sucks. Making all the decisions sucks. Hiding from the past sucks. Keeping secrets sucks. I know hers, and now it’s time for her to know mine.

I have been in control for far too long and this is where it ends.

I give it over to her freely. Willingly. Completely.

This is where it ends.

In the background the movie is still playing. We are still fucking, and laughing, and oblivious to everything that comes after.

More… gimme more… gimme more.

“Oliver,” she says. I can feel her heart beating fast against mine. We are artists and we paint our pictures with sex. “Take me to bed.”

I smile about all of it. The lies, the betrayal, the anger and the hurt.

None of it makes any difference.

“Sure,” I say, getting up off her and then offering her my hand so I can pull her up from the black stone slab.

If sacrifices must be made on the altar of life… well, I’m OK with that.

There is no gain without pain. I came to terms with that fact a long, long time ago.

I lead her across the room and up the stairs, our naked bodies and bare feet absorbing the chill of the dark night. We make our own heat when I turn on the camera sitting atop the tripod and get into bed.