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It feels like a tap slowly dripping, an incessant sound and slow, gradual corrosion. He feels it in his solar plexus, the drip rolling to his stomach, flooding his insides, curling around his organs. It happens every time he lets Carlos back in. He’s become used to it. He expects it. He feels strangely addicted to the sensation, riveted by the possibility of all the damage it will leave in its wake.
There’s very little that keeps Charles up at night. Out here on his balcony, he stares upward to see which constellations are out this time of year. When he was a child, he remembers liking that sort of thing. But for some reason – perhaps clouds, perhaps light pollution – the stars aren’t visible tonight. The moon is a pathetic sliver of a crescent, a cruel, close-lipped smile.
Carlos is asleep, but Charles supposes that soon he will wake up and want to leave and tell Charles something about an early morning, or people who are waiting for him, or calls he has to make. The same excuses Charles used to make when he was the one who left. Those were the days, he thinks to himself as he peers back into the bedroom. But all he can see from here, just barely visible in the shadows, is the shape of one of Carlos’s legs draped halfway off the bed.
He wishes he could remember how to say no. He used to be so good at it. It used to be the source of so much fun, the cat-and-mousing, the flirtation, dangling a carrot he never intended to let Carlos catch. Until Carlos did catch it. Because in the end, Charles let him.
They’d been able to resist it for two years, play up the chemistry for the social media team, find satisfaction in playful grabbing of hands and twisting of ears and pulling of shirts. Charles knew that Carlos had someone else, anyway. More than one, probably. Guys like Carlos always have more than one. And Charles, for his part, had plenty of others as well.
But it was just never really enough for them. They always seemed to need more any time they were close to each other. Maybe only then. Maybe.
He thought that if they gave in, if they got a little drunk and touched each other a bit and maybe even got each other off in what was sure to be an embarrassment and a disaster, they would get the urges out and be able to move on without the distraction they found in the smell of one another’s skin. And yes, the drinks had led to touching, which led to nakedness, which led to the bed and the friction they found in impossible, unforgivable closeness. Afterwards, they did not have the awkward let’s-just-forget-this-happened moment Charles had imagined. They were already making plans for the next night. Then for the weekend. Then for break. Then for every weekend, every break into the foreseeable future.
It still didn’t feel like such a problem until Charles thought about how much of their togetherness involved kissing. Sometimes that was all they would do. Meet for a while, kiss, go back out to the world. Carlos was so passionate about it, his hand always stretched over the side of Charles’s face, his lips firm and determined, his tongue hungry. And Charles lent his own softness to the touch, made each kiss slow, playful, tantalizing. He would put his hands on Carlos’s neck and hold him there, and they would breathe in each other’s air and invade each other’s space, and sometimes that was enough. And that was when Charles knew it was a problem.
He tried being cold for a while. Over that first winter break, he ignored messages, invitations, pretended not to know when Carlos was in town even though Carlos had made it more than obvious. When the new season started, Charles would show up for every requirement – dutiful favorite child that he is – and smile and laugh and play it up for the cameras and the fans and the sponsors. All the while, he knew that Carlos had no choice but to follow his lead. That was what Carlos did. He thought he shouldn’t be angry about it now, not in their third year of this charade. Carlos should be happy just to be there, to be a part of this historic team, to be paired with such a well-loved athlete. He really did convince himself that he was better than Carlos sometimes. If he didn’t, it would all be so sad that it would become unbearable.
It took a little time for Carlos to call him out. At first, it was only a passive-aggressive comment, or it was a hint from Carlos that maybe they could find a little time together later. Or tomorrow. Or the day after tomorrow. But then it seemed Carlos understood. He stopped trying. He was more obvious, more open about seeing people who weren’t Charles. Even the fans noticed the distance, but Charles ignored that. They could be won back. And even if they couldn’t, there were far more important things to worry about.
Like, for example, how he might be losing Carlos. Which was not what he wanted. Not like this.
He had only meant to assert that he was in control of this, that these things would only happen under his say-so. He had wanted to control what Carlos made him feel, but when that was impossible, he thought he could at least control what he and Carlos did. But now it had gone too far. Carlos wasn’t interested in him at all anymore. This was worse than the overbearing presence of their unnamed desires. This was a snapped C4 off the chicane. A classic case of whiplash.
He wished – still wishes – that he had ever learned how to understand anything he felt at all. Outside of sadness and the occasional brief bout of anger, he never really indulged in any of his feelings for too long. Sadness was natural for him, and it was easy to hide. Anger was never around long enough to matter. But other things… those got tricky. They complicated the whole bit. He never liked breaking from a routine or having to learn something new. Carlos was like learning something new every day. Carlos was such an abrupt occlusion to his way of thinking that it threw him off, unsettled him. He wanted to know it and deal with it and be done with it, but it being Carlos, this was not so easy.
He tried to bring Carlos back to him. Sending him the right texts, saying the right things, even teasing him about music and food and what he did for fun. Anything at all to get Carlos to respond. He felt silly and stupid and so out of control that he thought he might have lost touch with himself completely. And Carlos was not taking the bait, not answering the texts, not responding to the teasing. This was the closest Charles had felt yet to being suicidal.
It had taken silence, in the end. Charles gave up, stopped texting, stopped trying. He resigned himself to his fate. He even cried once, for a minute or two, before he continued with his life. He had done this to himself, he knew.
But the silence had worked.
It had happened on a press day. Charles had been less responsive, less playful than usual. But he had gotten through it alright, maybe a little dazed, before heading back to his room to change. It seemed out of nowhere that there was suddenly a hand wrapped around his wrist, a pull into the corner, out of sight. Lips on his, that familiar hand on his cheek.
They fell into the room, pushed each other around, kissed hard enough to leave marks. Charles ended up against the walls with Carlos fucking his thighs, his face buried in Charles’s neck, both of them struggling to whisper, to cover their moans, not to say anything they might later regret.
For a long time, this was the only way they would do it. Always in dangerous places, in high-risk moments. Always without planning or preparation. Always quietly, quickly.
And suddenly, it was exciting again. It was an escape from the pressures, the press, the fans, the noise, the job. For twenty minutes here, forty minutes there, and even the occasional five minutes somewhere, it could be just them, no one else. Just there, nowhere else. Just this. Nothing else.
He was in love, of course. He knew it by now, but the reality of it was too great and too tremendous for him to try to understand. He knew because of all the things he didn’t feel with Carlos. No stress, no pain, no confusion, no pressure. With Carlos it was soft. Everything was soft. A slap to the face or a kiss to the neck felt equally gracious and equally tender. This was love, and he knew it without a doubt. But if he didn’t think about it too much, he could manage it.
He was pretty sure he could manage it.
It helped, of course, that Carlos himself was becoming easier to understand. That Carlos, too, was incapable of quitting this. Charles was his nicotine habit, his steadying morning drink, his roulette wheel. Carlos could no more give up Charles than Charles could him, he just went about it a different way. Maybe Carlos wasn’t as scared as Charles. Maybe Carlos knew Charles better than Charles thought he did. Maybe, for the first time in his life, someone had been attracted to his insanity, was with him not in spite of the way he tried to push them off, but because of it.
Maybe Carlos wanted to win him like a prize. Maybe Carlos wanted to earn him like a championship. Maybe Carlos stayed up late some nights, too, wondering how to hold onto him without losing all control.
Maybe Carlos loved him so much that it overwhelmed him, too. Maybe he loved him so much that he could feel it creeping up his throat like vomit. Maybe they had a suicide pact but the cyanide pill would never quite take, just left them bleeding and crying and doubled over on the bathroom floor until it passed. And then they’d take it again. Again. Again. Maybe this time it will kill us.
Charles remembers now how extraordinarily normal this night had been. They had even talked before, had caught up on everything that had been happening in their lives lately, had talked about their girlfriends, about their families, about the fucking dogs, even. How he had crawled into Carlos’s lap and kissed the whiskey from his lips. How they had called each other precious and beautiful and complimented each move, each touch, each little sensation. How there was not one part on each other’s bodies that they had not both acquainted themselves with tonight. How this sort of thing was becoming a regular occurrence again. How that was just not sustainable.
Charles wonders if there is any world where they are something else. Where they are just two people in love who don’t have to worry about it or go crazy from it or hide it. Then he wonders if it’s only fun because it’s hidden, because it’s all so complicated. Because Carlos will leave his home sometime in the next hour or two and go home to the woman he will probably marry one day. And she will love him – loves him already – and he will probably love her, too, in some sense. In whatever sense works for them. While Charles has found a beautiful roommate who loves to play house. Someone he cares about the way he cares about whether it will storm tomorrow or be sunny. Someone who is gentle with him not because it’s part of the game, but because she wants to be. Which isn’t fair. Just isn’t fair.
He’ll have to go silent again for a while after the night they had, of course. Every time this monster sneaks up inside him the only way he knows to keep it tame is to starve it. And this monster is always ready at the gate, always finding ways to shrink itself enough to fit between the bars, then inflate into something that threatens to burn down the village of Charles’s self-control. He will have to ignore the calls again. Cancel plans they’ve already made. Probably lay it on thick with someone else for a while. Not with her. He knows that never bothers Carlos. He’ll find someone, though. Maybe Lando. It’s always funny to do with Lando. That always gets him.
He walks back into the bedroom and tugs on Carlos’s dangling foot, pulls him at the ankle to wake him. Carlos kicks him away but turns around, faces him. Charles leans down to tell him it’s late. Carlos pulls him back into bed and kisses him.
This is where it hurts. Being loved. It’s one of the worst ways Carlos could hurt him. It’s so selfish and so enraging. Why does Carlos do this to him? Why does he take this thing that is so out of control and remind Charles with every kiss that he will never, no matter what he does, no matter what he tells himself, get a handle on this?
He does not want Carlos to leave. He wants him to stay. Stay forever, bring your things, make my bed your bed and my home your home. He wants to show him his secrets and let Carlos poke at each one, pick at them until they bleed. He wants to lie here in these same arms until he has dissolved into dust. He wants to die here. Right now. He thinks he might be doing that, but it just isn’t quick enough. Everything is decay, but nothing is death.
Kissing dissolves like sugar and they are back to their old ways in a moment. It is dark and it is warm and he feels like a spider, all limbs and venom in the web of whatever this is they have. Carlos is his prey but he loves it so terribly. I will poison you and I will suck your blood but I will sing you a lullaby and I will make it feel like sleeping. When Carlos is inside him, Charles is telling himself that this is happening because he is letting it happen, that he could say no if he wanted to, that he could stop this at any time because he is in control. If the fly is eating the spider for a while it is by his own design, and he is just fine with it, and he is still the monster here. A fly cannot love a spider but he can love the design of the web, and that’s what’s happened here. He can’t help that Carlos is attracted to this anymore than he can control that he is attracted to laying these traps. This is the nature of them. And nature is full of things like sex and death and the desire for power.
When he reaches up to push the falling, sweaty strands of hair away from Carlos’s face, he is struck by the gentleness of his own actions. But then he remembers that the spider wraps the fly the way a mother swaddles a baby. He is still in control. He is still in control.
When he kisses Carlos just below the eye, when he brings his hands to the back of his hair, when he finds himself saying words like beautiful and please and wonderful. When he tells Carlos not to come yet, that he doesn’t want it to stop yet. When he rolls them over in the bed and puts his mouth on Carlos’s body so that he can enjoy him a little longer. When he no longer wants him to go home before they drag this out again. When he realizes that the shape of them could be a house.
He wishes the stars were out. Visibly. That they could have kept him outside a little longer and kept him away from in here. That he could be lying beneath them now pointing up at Orion or Cassiopeia or Ursa Major. He wishes he lived in the days when humans thought those were gods up there, that when they felt helpless they could take their burdens to the stars and receive mercy. Offer up a sacrifice to up their chances. He can think of a few things he’d give up to save him from this feeling.
Carlos pulls him close again, and Charles pretends he doesn’t want to feel it anymore, that he’s tired or it’s late or whatever nonsense excuses he uses every time. He pretends it all until Carlos overpowers him, which had been the point anyway. Until Carlos is fucking him again and it’s good and strong and crazy and even painful. Just the way he likes. No thinking when this is happening. No worrying. In a moment, a blissful sweep of ecstasy will put a lot of this out of his mind long enough for Carlos to go home at last. And Charles will be in control again. It’s all according to plan.
They come with their mouths pressed together and open and voicing their want, their pleasure, their satisfaction. Carlos stays inside him and kisses him and touches his hair and his neck and his shoulders and seems to be avoiding saying something that Charles is only too happy to help him conceal. Their eyes meet in the dim light from outside, but they can read everything unsaid. Their eyes are the fine print of every contract they have signed in their minds. Contracts that say this will end. Eyes that say it will begin again. Date undetermined.
Sure as clockwork, Carlos starts to make his excuses for leaving. Charles stays in the bed all messy and a little sore and touches himself while Carlos leaves. Not for arousal. A remembrance. Like touching a relic blessed by a saint. His body has become a memorial. A sanctuary.
Carlos still bows to kiss him before he leaves. It is sweet and simple but very clearly a goodbye. By now, Charles is sure Carlos knows what is going to happen next. He should be used to it.
When he’s gone, the room is somehow darker. Charles looks over to the balcony, to the little light there, to the place where he would like to lie beneath stars that shun him. In the morning, it will be sunny, and he can ignore the way he’s treated by the celestial beings of the night.
He can ignore anything that isn’t right in front of him.