Glorified high ✓

IX

I saw the glimpse of you at the funeral or maybe it wasn't even you. All these years later I always see shadows of you, in fast-moving crowds on pedestrian crossings, standing near the edge of the platform at the underground station I'd see you in some stranger's face behind a window of a moving train. Like mirages on the sea. Like ghosts who haunt the damned, you would hover everywhere, follow me around.

After the funeral, I caught a bus to nowhere, the smudged window blurring my view, headphones in my ears blaring the music that I forgot I used to like. Because I even replaced my music taste - rugged guitars, drums and melodic lyrics I swapped with mesmerising bass beats without words, without emotion.

I ended up at your door late in the evening to tell you I was leaving and to pick up my stuff so I could go to my parent's house for a while. Or just away. You opened the door for me.

"Hey... It's so good to see you. I'm... So sorry. I'm so, so sorry. I'm sorry." You repeated those meaningless words to me but I didn't want to talk about Gia or her death anymore. After she died, in our brief conversation over the phone you explained to me how you both just fell asleep after I left and you woke up sometime later to find her on your bathroom floor with a syringe in her vein, heroin dose too big for her weak heart, apparently she was using without us knowing anything. I couldn't even imagine how it must have been for you to find her like that, trying to breathe life back into her while you were waiting for the sound of the ambulance siren. I should've been the one saying sorry to you. You were her lover too.

"Stop. She's gone and there's nothing we can do or say to bring her back." I told you as I hurriedly went around the place to gather my things. I've noticed how none of her bits and pieces were there anymore, someone must've come already to pick it up. "I'm leaving. I have to get away before I go crazy. I can't... I can't stay here anymore." You just stared at me for a long time, hip perched on your desk, arms crossed, disbelief in your eyes. You thought I was being a coward.

"Running away? How about you fucking stay and deal with it? I'm staying. I'm fucking going crazy too." Your voice trembled, unlike anything I heard before. "If you leave me too..." And then you moved with determination, your attitude changed to that of a wolf in the hunt, you grasped my wrist and lowered my hand that made my rucksack drop to the floor.

"Nothing makes sense anymore." The words that left your mouth touched my cheek as you were that close to me now, my back hit some wall behind me and I felt trapped by your body. "But this does. Only this makes sense."

The feel of your lips brought me emotion so vast that it nearly broke me to pieces. Your mouth was not new to me. The feel of your hands on my skin was not new to me. Yet it was never like this before, Gia used to be always there with us.

Blood rushed to all dormant parts of my body as my eyelashes fluttered not sure if I wanted my eyes opened or closed for this. The sensation of floating overtook me the moment your tongue found mine. I was scared and confused with all the thoughts that were swirling in my brain like the wildest tornadoes: we just buried Gia, this is wrong, are you here with me or are you somewhere else, are we just grieving, I don't like men, I like you, I need you.

"What are we doing?" I whispered as you wrapped your palm around my neck but all I could hear was your heavy breathing in my ear, no words, no reply. Maybe you did care for me enough to not tell me the truth then.

I let you into my bloodstream like all those chemicals I inhaled, but you were much more addictive. Lethal. I let you push me onto your mattress and you kissed the thin skin that stretched over my ribs still, all I heard was your heavy breathing and mine, and even though I trusted you more than I trusted anyone I needed to hear your voice. I needed to know that you were there mentally, with me, that you knew it was me, your best friend that you were going to ruin.

You searched my lips as your skillful fingers undid the buttons of my jeans and I left crescent moons on your back when you pushed your hips into mine. At that moment I knew no other sexual experience would compare to this no matter who I was with or how good of a lover they would be.

I couldn't control the embarrassing sounds escaping me after you repeated your move and you smiled proudly at yourself. I loved all your smiles but that one made me want to give myself to you more. More of my skin. More of my body. More of my voice. I wanted to moan for you again so you would know it was me and not another of your meaningless lovers. I never had the courage for that though. All I did was close my eyes and pray you would not leave me alone in that room once we'd finished.

As I felt your hot breath on the soft hairs of my bare thigh I heard your voice, distorted and distant, but that was just because my ears were throbbing with the beats of my heart. But you said, loud and clear, "I can't stop this. Please, don't make me stop this. Can I?"

I traced my fingers over your cheeks as your mouth sinned and sinned. And god, what a beautiful sin that mouth of yours was. "Yes. I don't want you to stop." I barely managed to breathe it out. Why ask for permission for things that had already been decided a long time ago.

Your weight felt so good on me after you collapsed, catching breath in the aftermath of our lust and strangely I wasn't bothered how the skin of our bellies touched. It was slick and wet with the evidence of what we just did and it should have brought me back to reality, instead, it made me want more. I have come to realise soon after that you were a fantasy come true in bed - you'd worship my body, digging your fingers into my flesh almost as if you were afraid I'd vanish in thin air. Maybe because exactly that happened to Gia, one moment she was there with you in the bed, and the next she was gone. Forever. The way you'd hold me after, pepper feather-light soft kisses and whisper sweet nothings it felt like this wasn't about sex at all, sex was just that last piece you were searching to complete the puzzle. We're not only best friends, we are soulmates now.

It was five AM and I knew that because I could hear the first-morning bus coming to a stop outside your building. It was a sleepless night for me however you fell asleep instantly after the second time we reached our high, together, your fist gripping both of us in the rawest mind-numbing form of pleasure. Instead of goodnight, you called me beautiful, making me blush. I wasn't used to guys calling other guys that, but then I remembered how that's exactly what I thought of you all this time. I will always be grateful for how you taught me to overcome my inhibitions and let go of the things holding me back from saying and doing what I would naturally do if I wasn't blinded by stereotypes and norms.

I didn't know if I should've left, if you wanted me to leave. I didn't want to but I didn't think I was ready to have a conversation about what had happened if I stayed. Even though my mind was beyond confused I still wanted to swim in the sea of blissful ignorance where the reality of the situation couldn't reach us yet and I get to have you again like this.

You made that decision for me, like most of the decisions - under the cover of darkness when I moved my naked body to get out of bed, I felt your hand on my waist and your knees settling under my hamstrings. Like it was the most natural thing you had ever done.

"Stay," you said with a brush of your dry, overused lips on my spine, that single quiet word working like ecstasy upon my brain and I hoped that it wasn't me dreaming.