a pattern

Something I just started working on over the weekend. I don’t fully like it just yet. I like the shape of it and the way it fits into the larger story. But I think it needs more time, some editing, maybe some room to breathe. IDK, but here it is.

a pattern

Together they developed a pattern. In the afternoon Luis wandered the streets, marking the time between their next meeting. At night, in the comfort of K’s spacious apartment, he listened eagerly as K bossed him around. In the dark, the folds of his body illuminated solely by the soft glow of purple LEDs, K would tilt his head and kiss his neck. Intoxicated, he complied. First, to the quiet subtle commands of hand moving hand, lips parting lips, then, to the more direct directions, whispered into his ear.

K told him to strip, and so he did. Slowly, Luis unbuckled his belt, struggling to remove each button from his jeans. K said nothing, but watched in pointed silence, waiting for Luis to comply before issuing a new demand. Luis removed his shirt, and then his underwear and K ordered him close, kissing him gently before retreating; the thin membrane of Luis’s bottom lip still tucked between his teeth. K told him to kneel and so he knelt. To place his hands behind his back. To look up and smile. To beg. To plead. To crave. In anticipatory perfect, Luis followed each command. A fury burned deep inside of him, spreading to his head and fanning out, coating his body in impossible heat. Somehow, he had been here before. Never like this. No, the inverse. But when was the change first made?

Before, in the winter of their love, Luis was in charge. Eagerly he positioned K’s body into a never-ending stream of poses and desires. Luis remembered the difference between them: the weight of his new muscle against K’s thin frame always gave him the advantage. Without thinking he would pick K up and toss him against the wall, the textured wall etching deep red grooves into his bare back. Now, Luis was hypnotized and focused on following each precise command K whispered to the two of them. Look up. Open your eyes. Keep going. Swallow. Fully. Good boy.

His head buzzed with each machination. Inside him, the fury was slowly replaced by a bubbling sense of pride. If he thought of it too closely, he could almost twist it straight to shame. But, as if anticipating his reaction, K would pull him up, holding him tightly against his smooth chest, and kiss him softly again and again. Together they would continue, for twenty minutes, maybe an hour. It was always hard to tell. In the thick of things, time stretched and thinned. Malleable, like molten glass, it bent around the two of them before settling finally into delicate precision. Once finished, K would clean Luis and lay beside him. Together, the two of them counted the revolutions of the ceiling fan in absolute silence.

Luis thought of something barbed and anxious, like desire—or a twisted sense of the word at least. Embarrassingly, he craved K’s scent on him. He wanted to wear it throughout the day and claim it as his badge of honor. Once, after leaving (K never let him stay) he refused to shower. The next day he wandered the streets of Minneapolis mixing sweat and scent before returning home to the old flings place and laying naked in the bathroom, tracing with his fingers the parts of him now marked by K. But now he could feel a new surfacing sensation. A trivial compulsion really. He went to ask the question but his lips and throat were dry and nothing but a squeak came out.

“What?” K asked.

“Nothing.” Luis answered. “That was hot.”

Breaking the trance K pushed his body upright, running his hand through his now damp hair.

“It was,” he said. “But I’m getting a bit tired and have work in the morning.”

Luis stood up from the bed and found his clothing. K stood watching him, leaned against the wall, noting the steps he took, watching the nervous way Luis dressed. K walked him to the door and the two of them stood against its frame watching each other. K’s lips pursed and his body jerked. Opposite him, Luis dipped his head and stared at the floor. He refused to meet K’s eyes. He knew already the pitying gaze that would be returned to him. And what did he have to feel bad for? To feel pitied for? A fun thing between two people. Nothing else. He had replicated the act a hundred times before to men of all shapes and sizes. Men with partners and wives and big red beards and hungry wanting eyes. He had watched each one of them make the same walk to the door, some revelation he didn’t care to know about stirring inside of them. An aftershock, he always thought. The consequence of orgasm or conquest or however else you wished to frame it. Still, he felt embarrassed. He knew there was no shame in sex (there was never any shame in that). But desire? Endless burning desire? That was the most shameful thing of all.