We entered the flat – Christian looked like he was battling agitation, trying to calm himself but failing.
"Christian, what's wrong?"
"Okay, just know I didn't want to say anything."
"Tell me."
"All it is... all it is, is that... I'm drowning here. I'm drowning in this, in us."
"What does that even mean?"
"I just feel... I want to support you in this, I'm here for you, no matter what. But I just... I'm finding it hard too." He finally looked up at me. "You know?"
"Yeah, I know. It must be hard. I'm trying."
"I don't wanna pressure you – I know you'll need time. That's always been the case. That's what I told Jane..."
"Do you talk about us to her?" I felt vulnerable now. I hoped he didn't.
"No, of course not. She just wouldn't let it go."
"Wouldn't let what go, though?"
"I've been getting stressed at her lately, just because this is stressful – not because of you."
"Clearly it is me. Why are you stressed? You haven't said anything."
"No, Sy, it's not you at all. It's just... everything, circumstances."
"So all this time you've been miserable and just hiding it from me?"
"No, course not. I'm so happy, over the moon to be with you. I can't even explain what it feels like to go to bed with you, every night. It's... I feel like we've just met. I'm incurable."
"So...?"
"So nothing. That's my point, nothing needed to be said."
I felt like I'd had a completely different conversation to him. Did he think he'd cleared things up? I was so confused.
"But Christian, you said this was stressful, these circumstances... you need to elaborate. Don't act like I don't need to know."
He took my hand and brought me over to the sofa to sit down with him. He sat far forward, looking at the coffee table, his hands wrung together like usual when he was stressed.
"I just feel... like we're not a couple. Like we're something inside this flat and something else outside of it." He paused but I didn't speak. I wanted him to explain. "I know it's not been long since we started up again, I know this is all new and scary territory, I know all this. I'm not expecting miracles. I'm not expecting anything. I wish I didn't feel bad about it. But it's just... I don't know, on some level, I obviously jumped the gun and allowed myself to get excited about the fact you're my boyfriend, for real now. And you are, but it doesn't mean what I thought it would, what part of me thought it would, the part that got carried away with itself, I guess. It's like there's two of me right now – one side that is just like an overexcited puppy and the other which knows our journey, what it took to get here. That knows I have to wait. So, I don't really know what saying any of this achieves because nothing can fix it but time."
It hurt to hear. All this time, I'd been so besotted, so happy, and he'd been miserable. Because of me, because I'm not ready – or I'm not where he is. I felt so... blamed. "Right. So you tell me you're unhappy and I'm supposed to be okay with that? Because I don't care about your feelings, right? This is all a sacrifice for me."
"No, of course not. Look, Sy, what I'm trying to say is that really there's nothing to tell. Of course there's gonna be minor stumbling blocks to begin with, that's just..."
"But what do you mean by 'stumbling blocks'? What do you mean 'we don't feel like a couple'?"
"Just... y'know, it's like when we're out, you're scared to touch me. You get nervous whenever I get near you, I can see the panic in your eyes any time I go to do anything that remotely suggests we're together. And it's just stuff I'd do by reflex, I'm not trying to make your life hard. Even benign things, things friends might do. And I can't help but feel a bit hurt by it. I know I shouldn't take it personally but it feels personal when your boyfriend literally flinches at your touch, when he makes you feel like you really could be anyone he's out with. And I know where we are with us – I know it's just how it is for now. I know all this, so..."
I didn't even know what to think or say. What do you say to that? How do you respond to the fact you're to blame for everything? For your partner feeling miserable? I just felt stupid – stupid to have actually thought we were in some amazing place when all along... I didn't even know what was real now, I questioned everything. Had all his smiles, all his words to me... had they been fake? To placate me? Did he think him forgoing happiness for my sake made me feel any good? It made me feel wretched. We were a lie.
I could feel my eyes well up, my throat get caught. Christian put his arm around me but I jumped up from the sofa, took a couple of paces towards the bathroom, just to get away from him. It wasn't okay, how could he pretend it was?
"Don't, Christian. Don't tell me you're not happy with us and then play it down."
He got up, came over to me, embraced me. I tried to wrestle free of him but he wouldn't let me go.
"Get off!"
"No, Sy! You're not listening. Or, like usual, you're only listening to things that sound damning. I'm head over heels in love with you, is what I said. I finally get to be with the man I hold in the greatest esteem, the man I long for even when I'm right next to him – I can't even describe those feelings. For that reason, I'm chomping at the bit for us to be together properly, a proud couple, for you to feel comfortable with me – not to see past the fact I'm a man but to love that I am one, to love that we are men, gay men, in love. I want that so badly because I couldn't love you anymore than I already do. And I'll wait for you because of that. And yeah, sometimes it stresses me out that we can't express ourselves, but wouldn't you be more concerned if it didn't?"
"I don't want to think we're something we're not. To think you've been feeling this way when I thought we were great, it makes me feel stupid. It makes me feel selfish."
"You're not stupid, or selfish. You're kind and sweet and funny. You care about people and you want to see the best in them. And you're gorgeous! Please, Sy, this isn't a big thing. It's new to me too, this. I have things to learn too, that I need to keep seeing the bigger picture, which is you and me together – against the odds. It's you and me, Sy."
He smiled, amazed at it, that we were... a couple, partners, boyfriends. It had been a long journey, yes, and it wasn't over. But we were with who we wanted to be with. I still felt wary, that he'd not had the confidence (in me?) to express this to me, how he was feeling. That it took someone else to encourage it. But then honesty hurt – that was the point of all this really. Honesty had hurt Amira, it had hurt my family, it had hurt me, him – but more than the lies?
"Promise me, Christian – we're in this together. I don't want you speaking to Jane about it, you should say it to me. And if I get upset then calm me down. Because you can."
He stroked my cheek, tucked my hair behind my ear.
"You said honesty, Christian."
"I know. It's just, the last thing I want you thinking is that I'm unhappy. That would be to misrepresent me completely, what I feel for you."
"For what it's worth, words do you no justice either."
"That's worth everything."
I smiled for the first time since this morning. His face still serious, he kissed me – hot, wet, perfect. I pulled him into me, needing to feel him, properly, but then I pulled back.
"No, Christian, I always do this."
"What?"
"I fall into sex with you when we haven't resolved things."
"What's not resolved?"
He took advantage of my pause to start kissing me again, me almost getting sucked back into it again but I showed resolve.
"I need to know what I can do, or what can be done, to put things right."
"They are right."
"I mean happy. Totally happy," I added to stop him finding a loophole.
"Come on, Sy, don't pretend stuff isn't getting your back up too. I know you miss your parents, for example. I know you're missing all that."
I'd been trying to put them to the back of my head. "Yeah, well... they made their feelings clear. I'm not welcome."
"And that's that, is it?"
"I don't have a choice." I could feel a bubble in my throat now. "I can't lose both of you." My eyes filled with tears that begged to fall. My head dropped onto Christian's shoulder, my tears soaking his t-shirt through.
"Would it be too gay to quote from Jerry Maguire and say you had me at 'hello'?"
I hit him playfully for making me laugh. "I hate you," I said, grinning.
We were naked, Christian over me, my legs resting on his shoulders. His fingers were sinking into me, slowly, going as deep as they could, making me feel every detail of them. He'd needed to break me in gently tonight – my mind had been fixated on what I could do to stop him hurting, I hated to inflict that pain. But right now, he'd taken my mind off that. I was relaxed, feeling so at one with him. His fingers left me and he started rubbing himself, moistening himself with the lube which was still on his fingers, his eyes never leaving mine. My breathing stuttered at the sight of him, this beautiful man.
He slid slowly inside me, his face coming to within inches of mine as I felt him deeper and deeper within me. Everything was in slow-motion, I'd lost all concept of time. Our surroundings went black and all I could see was him, his face, his chest, his arms. Each thrust was drawn out, each breath of his enticed me more. I was more passive than I'd ever been, I just couldn't move, couldn't speak, I was so lost in him.
My eyes began to flicker, I could taste him in the air. My cheeks clenched around him, drew him up inside me, my hands gripped his arms tighter and tighter, his breaths, his moans, were louder, sounds left me... each vein, each artery, capillary, expanded letting the blood rush through, my head get light, my body feel weightless. I could feel myself shake beneath him, convulse, my eyes roll back behind my closed lids... And again I was breathing, heavy, laboured, my body stopped tensing, my eyes opened and beheld the man I loved more than anything, anyone, any moment.
I swallowed. The sheets were soaking, our bodies soaking. I licked my lips, I could taste the salt – I wanted him. He pulled out and crashed down beside me, his chest heaving, dripping. I lay over him, kissed him, tasted him.
I knew that anything, anything, which happened now would never win over this. This would keep us together through whatever life threw at us, because this was better than life itself.
