"Mark?"
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
He climbs off my bed, off my chest, away from me. There's no need for him to say anything else. Just yeah. Yeah, and yeah, whatever, it's wrong. He's in a relationship. We're best friends. Yeah.
We've had that conversation. Obviously, judging from my lack of clothes, his lack of clothes and the general lacking of clothes (not to mention the rumpled blankets, the ruffled hair, the ruined sheets), it didn't make much difference. We still share the odd fuck, the semi-regular hand-hold when there's nobody around, the way-more-than-regular kiss stolen in dark corners, deserted apartment rooms (not necessarily our own), even sometimes behind a shelf at the library. It's bad, because he's taken and I'm Mark, but yeah.
Yeah, sure, whatever. I watch him pull on his pants, slide them over his smooth skin, not bothering to crane my neck. I can see perfectly from the funny angle my head rests on the pillow. When he starts to search for his shirt, I smile, because I know where it is, but I'm not going to tell. It's much more fun to see him half-naked, bemused, confused. His eyes stray to the bed, and he's looking at me. The sheets are tangled around my feet, but otherwise I'm totally bare, and despite the flood of self-consciousness that I know is making me blush I keep my eyes on his face as he rakes his gaze up my body. Skinny, spazzy Mark. When his eyes finally hit mine, I smile flippantly, mockingly. Come hither, my Roger, come play with me. You know you want to.
I fumble for my glasses on the bedside table, groping until I feel their cold metal frame in my fingers. Once they're on my face the world clears, it's vibrant, Roger's eyes are screaming Yeah, and I laugh because he's laughing at me. Skinny, scrawny, bony Mark, naked but for his glasses. He walks over, kneels on the bed with one knee, leans, kisses my forehead. Kisses my nose. Kisses my chastely on the lips, a gentle pressure, and then he's gone.
Probably off to find Mimi, Miss Mimi Marquez, but I don't mind because I know he'll be back and until then I can play with my camera, which is faithful and enough to keep my life constant, allowing for exciting, imbalanced, unsteady flings with exciting, imbalanced, unsteady once-upon-a-time rock stars. Yeah, it's fucked. Who cares? I've always loved him, always taken care of him, always made sure he never disappeared completely inside himself, always made sure he took his AZT. Now he's always with me, always wants me and he's always, always so careful, and it's never enough but it's enough for now, and until then, well…
Yeah.