NICK

It started in my chest and moved lower, down south.

It was a physical response that my body registered before my mind could even process the threat.

I was sexually aroused. It was a biological fact that felt like a betrayal.

I sat up in bed. The room felt too small. The air felt too hot.

This is intolerable, I thought. He was in my house. He was right through that wall. And I couldn’t stop thinking about the way his skin felt.

I made a decision. I did it fast, the way people make bad decisions when they are desperate.

I couldn’t stay in this room. I couldn’t lie here and think about the color of his eyes for another four hours.

I got dressed in the dark, grabbed my keys, and walked out.

I walked through the living room. I didn’t look at the couch. "I’m going out," I said to the air. "I won’t be back until morning." I didn’t wait for him to answer. I walked out the door and didn’t look back.

The engine roared to life, and I drove. I told myself I didn’t know where I was going, but the car knew.

It turned toward the city. It turned toward the apartment I had been avoiding all week. I was going to Lila’s.

I knocked on her door. When she opened it, she looked surprised. She started to ask questions, but then I saw a movement behind her.

There was another man on the couch. He was smoking, looking at me with the bored expression of someone whose night had just been interrupted.

"I took your advice," Lila said. She looked at me, waiting for a reaction.

I looked at the man. I looked at her. I didn’t feel anything. No jealousy. No anger.

Just a cold, sharp calculation. "I’ll go," I said, already turning to leave.

Lila grabbed my arm. "Wait—" She turned to the man on the couch and said something sharp.

There was an argument. I didn’t listen to the words. The man realized the night was over for him.

He grabbed his jacket and left, brushing past me with a scowl.

When we were alone, Lila started in on me.

She complained about the ignored calls. She complained about the way I had treated her.

Her voice was the voice of someone who had been keeping a tally of every slight and had finally found the moment to present the bill.

I don’t have time for this, I thought. I didn’t want to talk. I didn’t want to hear about her feelings. I leaned in and kissed her before she could finish her sentence.

She pulled back, breathless. "A kiss doesn’t just fix—"

"Then should I leave?" I asked. My voice was deadpan. I meant it. "We can end this right now. All of it. If you’d prefer. And I would never talk to you again."

Lila looked at my face. She searched for something soft, something like an apology, and found nothing.

"Ugh! Fine." She gave in. She always gave in. She clung to me because she was afraid of being alone, and she clung to what she had even when it didn’t really see her.

"Gee, Nick, you’re so mean," she grumbled, her voice low. "It’s almost like you have no heart. Though that’s my favorite thing about you."

"Whatever."

We moved to the bedroom. She kept asking questions, and I kept not answering them.

We undressed each other while kissing frantically. I needed this to work. I needed this to fix the glitch in my system.

But it wasn’t working.

As we moved together, my mind was elsewhere. My body was not cooperating. I was unable to get an erection. The same that came uninvited an hour ago.

It was a specific, humiliating failure of a body that had decided it simply wasn’t interested in what was being offered.

I tried to force it. I felt a surge of frustration that tasted like vomit.

I was irritated at myself. I was irritated at the absurdity of the situation. This had never happened before.

I was a healthy man. I was in my prime. It always worked.

And then, without an invitation, Cyan’s face arrived.

I saw him in the dim light of my mind. I saw the proximity of his face in the dining room. I saw his eyes.

I felt that same cold drop in my stomach... the one I had felt when I was too close to him.

My body responded immediately. The heat returned. I was suddenly, painfully aroused. I was bricked up, and the realization hit me with the weight of a physical blow.

What the fuck, I thought. I understood it then. I understood something I could never un-understand.

My body wasn’t responding to Lila. It was responding to the memory of a man I had left asleep on my couch.

I got through the rest of the night mechanically. Lila noticed something was off. "You seem... different tonight," she whispered. "Did something happen at work?"

"Don’t talk," I said. I wasn’t trying to be mean. I just couldn’t handle her voice right then.

She complied. She always did when I used that tone. But I wasn’t really there with her. I was somewhere else. I was looking into a specific pair of purple eyes that had nothing to do with this bed or this woman.

I woke up at 4 AM. Lila was asleep next to me, her breathing deep and even. The room was dark, but I felt a sense of wrongness.

My body wanted to leave. It wanted to be gone before she woke up and started asking for more of me.

I dressed quietly. I didn’t leave a note. I walked out into the cool morning air and got into my car.

At 5:24 AM, I let myself back into my apartment. The television was off now. The room was quiet. The light I had left on was still burning, casting a warm glow over the furniture.

Cyan was on the couch. He was finally asleep. His face was relaxed in a way it hadn’t been when I left. The tension had drained out of his features, leaving him looking younger, more vulnerable.

My legs took me closer to him. I didn’t tell them to move. The compulsion that had started earlier was back, and now that it was 5 AM and my defenses were down, it was in total control. I squatted in front of the couch so I was directly facing him.

He was so close. His face was at rest. I could see everything I had been cataloging all day and night.

The length of his lashes, the silver of his piercings, the curve of his jaw. I could look at him now without the complication of him looking back. I could take him in.

There was a strand of pink hair across his cheek. My hand moved before I could stop it.

I hesitated for a second... a real, significant hesitation... but then I ignored it. I reached out and brushed the hair away.

The touch was electric. My fingers lingered for a second longer than they should have.

His face was unobstructed now. I looked at the way his lashes rested against his cheek.

I looked at the special beauty of him... a beauty I had been refusing to name all day.

I named it now, in the silence of the early morning. I named it to myself because there was no one else to hear it.

I felt something in my stomach. It wasn’t the cold drop this time. It was something slower and more thorough.

It was dangerous. I remembered the dream. I remembered the reach. I remembered the way my body had responded in Lila’s bed when I thought of this face.

"Fuck," I whispered. My voice was just a breath in the sleeping room. "I think I’m in trouble."

The real truth arrived in the silence that followed. It didn’t soften the blow. It didn’t negotiate.

No, I thought. This is already too far.

Cyan kept breathing, entirely unaware of the man watching him. I stayed there, squatting in front of the couch at 5:24 in the morning, unable to move.

The surrender was already complete, even if I hadn’t admitted it yet.