I JUST WANT YOU TO LIKE ME | ✓

▬ 16: buffer state

Fatigue still clings to me as sleep slowly retreats. Even when I'm awake enough to feel Ziri caress my cheek, my eyelids remain too heavy to open, my lashes glued together.

He must sense I'm approaching consciousness because he whispers, 'Dinner will be ready in twenty minutes. Do you feel like eatin or do you just wanna sleep?'

I'm about to tell him I want to sleep, but just as the words reach my tongue, I realise how hungry I am, like I haven't eaten in weeks. Ziri smiles when he sees my eyes part. The room is dark, save for a light glow that cleaves through the ajar door, and my eyes shift to the window to find a square of pitch-black sky.

I crashed into bed the moment I got home from therapy, and the sun was still bright then. I know that because I distinctly remember thinking that I don't have the energy to close the blinds — honestly, it's lucky I had enough energy not to crash the car. From now on, I'll have to go to therapy by bus because it's definitely not safe for me to drive like this.

'I'll eat.'

Ziri picks up a glass from the nightstand. 'Brought you some water.'

I push myself up onto my elbows to take it and gulp several mouthfuls. It's cold and tastes like it came directly from a blessed mountain stream.

Ziri continues to stroke my hair as I drink. 'How was therapy?'

'Exhausting.'

He hums a laugh. 'I know what you mean.'

I sip the water, hoping it'll last forever so I have an excuse not to talk, but I'm too thirsty to savour it properly, and the glass is empty within a minute. I place it on the table.

'He — Dr Qureshi — wants me to talk to you about boundaries during sex. Which I told him is stupid, cause we've never had sex, so what boundaries are there to talk about? But apparently, it's "useful for the future".'

I inject enough mockery into my imitation of him to ensure Ziri understands I know it's ridiculous and don't actually want to do it. I'm perfectly happy ignoring the homework as I did most of the time in school, hastily scribbling something two minutes before class.

But Ziri replies in earnest. 'You wanna do that now or some other time?'

I stare at him. Surely he has better things to do.

'I guess now.' If I'm already exhausted and having an awful day, I might as well get all this over with, and there's a chance tomorrow won't be as awful. I wouldn't mind being put in a coma for a few weeks right about now.

Ziri climbs over me to sit comfortably against the wall rather than on the edge of the bed. I sit up.

'I feel bad, cause we've been waiting for five years and all and now we have to wait even longer just cause of me, like.'

I watch his mouth curve into a stubborn smile he tries dutifully to repress. 'K– Miles... do you not hear the double standard in that? You have been tellin me for five years how you don't need sex and how I don't owe you sex. I don't need that either.' He reaches out for my wrist to still my wringing. 'We don't need to have sex.'

I finally meet his eyes, black pupils lost in black irises. Everything about him is whole.

'I do wanna have sex with you,' I say earnestly. 'I well wanna have sex with you. That's the whole point of this therapy thing.'

Ziri's smile grows, though it has a tautness to it that tries to pull it into a frown. 'No, Miles, you aren't goin to therapy so we can have sex. You're goin to therapy so you can heal from your trauma, or at least begin to.'

I fight the urge to open the scab on my thumb, but with Ziri watching, I try to substitute it by repetitively scrunching my toes. Maybe I'm disgusting and sex-obsessed. Maybe I'm making our relationship into something perverse — maybe I'm the one who did it with Dominic too, maybe he didn't even want to have sex.

Maybe we shouldn't have sex. I shouldn't ever touch Ziri with such sick hands.

Predicting my thoughts, just as I go to shift away, Ziri moves forward and takes hold of my other wrist too, pulling my hands apart to take them in his. 'I love you,' he reminds me, caressing my knuckles with his thumbs. 'We don't have to have sex, but if we do, what boundaries do you want to make?'

My palms itch in his hold — my whole body itches. I need to run. I need to leave.

'I don't know if I'll be comfortable bottoming for a while. Maybe ever.'

'That's okay.' Ziri's thumb pauses on the knuckle of my ring finger to massage it before he continues to travel the hills and valleys. 'Tassano, we don't even need to have penetrative sex at all.'

My eyes snap up to him, and I go to disagree, but I close my mouth before I say owt.

Deducing my thoughts once again, Ziri teases, 'You need to unlearn your internalised heteronormativity, babe.'

I smile, though this is nothing I want to smile about. How does he have the patience for me? He should be with someone who doesn't drag him down or hold him back, someone as intelligent and as much of an actualised queer as him. I can't even hold his hand in public.

Ziri continues to caress my knuckles. 'If we do have penetrative sex as some point, what are your thoughts on condoms?'

'What d'you mean?'

It's his turn to be embarrassed. 'Well, we're in a committed relationship, innit. Unless you're cheatin on me—'

'I'm not cheating on you!'

'I know that.' Ziri recaptures my hands that I yanked back in my shock. 'It was a joke.'

'I'm too tired for jokes.'

'Sorry.' A sheepish smile tugs at his lips. 'Anyway, if we both just get tested first, I'm fine — um — not using them.'

I consider it for a moment. With Dominic, we started out using condoms, but after a few months, he stopped. The first time, I was already lubed and pinned to the bed when he reached into the drawer of his nightstand to find nothing but an empty box. I asked if he could run down to the nearest shop, but Dominic's breath was pummeling into my neck. Please, bunny, his voice wormed hot in my ear. I need you so bad.

'I already got tested when we started dating,' I say and shrug. 'Guess we'd save money not using them.'

Ziri makes a sound between a laugh and a scoff. 'I don't know how much sex you reckon we'll be havin that we'll save any significant amount of money on condoms, but sure. Every pound counts. You wanna start a swear jar but with condoms, so you put in fifty pence every time we have condomless sex and in fifty years we can go on holiday?'

I burst with laughter, and the bands of anxiety around my chest break. I pull my hands from his so I can hug him. 'I love you.'

Notes

Tassano: (lit. my liver) A term of endearment