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I spin around. “What?”
My face is flushed with embarrassment and misplaced lust. Jesse made it very clear that night what he thinks about a physical relationship with me and besides that, we signed a contract explicitly stating there would be no relationship beyond a platonic one.
Friends don’t think about friends this way. But friends don’t stare at their friends’ bare chests, covered in sweat and think, “I wonder what that tastes like,” either. And I definitely did that last week.
“What did you say?” I ask, my palm pressed to my throat to hide the pounding there.
“I was going to make something to drink. Did you want anything?”
“Whatever you’re having,” I say, still too shrill to be normal.
“OK,” he says slowly. “Why don’t you pick a movie. Maybe if we’re sitting down and sitting still she’ll come out eventually?”
“Great idea.” I lunge for the remote control and start flipping through the menu. “How many streaming services do you have?” I ask as I scroll through the many options on his TV; basically every genre of streaming service is available, from sports to film.
He makes a sound in the kitchen, something that would sound like choking from anyone else but is in actuality Jesse’s laugh. “I got a bunch of them when I was recovering from my surgery.”
I land on a film by a British director with a proven track record. It seems like one of those movies that has sweeping landscapes and intense close-up shots and a moving soundtrack. Jesse brings two mugs of peppermint tea from the kitchen. “Is this OK?”
“This is great,” I say and immediately, I burn my tongue on the tea.
“Thanks...” he says quietly as the movie starts. “For...you know.”
I hold the mug close to me. I’m not cold. The opposite actually. But it gives me something to do with my hands. “That’s what friends are for, right?”
He looks at me, his mouth bracketed by the fine lines of a frown. His chest is broad, his back straight, and he leans toward me, the barest inch. My heart does a silly flip, an overreaction, when Betty makes a small chirruping sound from her carrier. We turn to stare at her where she’s poked her head out, but our sudden movement scares her, and she ducks back in.
We settle in to watch the movie and it starts like I expect. Long pans of the British countryside, reminding me of the place I called home for so many years; gray skies, a lot of sheep. And then, a sex scene. The sounds of two men having sex hits us in surround sound; I flush and glance quickly over at Jesse, who’s leaned back on the couch. He’s slouched, his mug of tea untouched on the coffee table, his bare feet up, one crossed over the other. I mirror him. I, too, am unaffected by watching other people experiencing sexual pleasure whilst in the presence of a person I would like to experience sexual pleasure with.
The movie continues without incident. Betty sits, her body half-in, half-out of the carrier. My tea gets cold. There’s a hand’s-width of space between Jesse and me. The characters on screen argue, but the tension is thick and obvious. There is a romance playing out on the screen and I’m a nervous woman with impulse control issues sitting next to her objectively hot, departmentally mandated new friend. Jesse shifts as the tension ramps up between the actors. An argument outside in the rain that we both know will end in a kiss, in their clothes off, their bodies pressed together. I pull my feet off the table and sit on my hands as shirts are pulled up on screen, pants pulled down only as far as necessary. As music crescendos and two men make love in the British countryside.
Jesse shifts again, pulling his feet off the table as well. I follow his movement, his legs pressed together, his feet firmly on the rug, his hand as it slides up his thigh to cover...
OK.
OK.
I am a historian, not a scientist. But as a historian, I still require evidence to make claims about the past. I value evidence. And right now, the evidence is telling me I might not be the only one turned on. Jesse catches me, and now that I’m looking, I can’t look away. He’s beautiful, thick and filling out his dark jeans, which leave almost nothing to the imagination. He flushes, color creeping up his neck and into his cheeks, and fifty percent of the reason I do what I do next is because I, too, am horny from a combination of close proximity and film erotica and Jesse is my friend. I don’t want him to feel embarrassed or ashamed about what is nothing more than natural. At least, I don’t want him to be any more embarrassed than I am.
“Lu,” he says, his tone laced in apology, but I stop him with my hand on his thigh.
“It’s OK.” His thigh, the one with metal plates in it, is rigid. “We’re friends, right?”
He closes his eyes, flushing more, and I shake my head. “We’re friends and...” I take a deep breath to prepare myself for what I’m about to say and for the embarrassment if he says no. “You’re my friend and I’m yours.”
He swallows. “Yeah.”
“Well.” I take his hand from where he’s unsuccessfully covered his erection. “Friends help each other out, right?”
He’s quiet as I place his hand on my thigh. I thought the weight of his hand would ground me, but sensation moves like electricity through my body, between my legs.
“Friends do favors for each other,” I say, my voice thready and thin. “Right?”
“Yeah.” His voice has changed, too, deeper, rougher.
“Maybe we could do each other a favor. As friends,” I say quickly. “Just friends.” My heart pounds in the back of my throat. I’m not even sure what I’m asking him for. What the favor would be, other than a relief. The ability to sit beside him again and not feel tension pulled tight like a steel cable. “Friends...get each other off? Right?” I whisper.
Jesse stares at his hand on my thigh. He stares at my hand as I run it slowly up his thigh, stopping before I touch him. He stares at me, his face far more serious than how nervous I feel.
