Two hours into the dinner, and I see that Jeff wishes he stayed comfortably home. He and I do all the talking, and all the phrases directed at Thom meet a dead end, become nothing but drivel, and cause a moment or two of awkwardness. I should be throwing daggers, I think, after all – I meet all of his friends with nothing but sheer exhilaration, forced or not. I should, I think, refrain from talking to him on the way home, and then, after he demands my attention, tell him what a wanker he’d been during the dinner.
Instead I find myself mildly enjoying the whole situation. I hope Jeff doesn’t see the betrayal behind my tone, which I know Thom recognizes, even if he is not showing it. It’s the tone I use when I want him to watch and to listen to me. It’s the tone that is more intimate than passing my hand over his arm, I think, for it is unrecognizable to the alien ear. Even though he is staring at the table most of the time, I know that he is listening, and I tell him a lot.
I tell him (as Jeff and I remember the times when we were just teenagers), for example, how I remember the first time he stumbled into my life, eyes locking with mine for a second before passing to Colin, and how my first impression of him was inevitably flawed, as I thought that there was no way Colin would stick around with him for longer than a month.
Jeff remembers the time when I was practicing viola, locked up in my room and barely talking at school. I laugh at his little jokes and I gaze at Thom sideways, mockingly, for I want him to know that that was the time when he held me for a fool and I fostered a deep feeling of repulsion toward him.
We go on lazily with the years and hit the point when Thom came back from the university for the holidays, how I first saw him in the doorway, his eyes on mine, walking in uncertainly, as if he thought he had got the wrong door. My cheeks scarlet and my breathing (masked, of course) unsteady, I let myself dissolve in the room as Thom took the seat opposite of me, talking to the people he never talked to before. He hadn’t looked at me at all during that evening, although my eyes had not left his face for the whole time. I looked openly at him, basking in my wanton display of tenderness. I loved him then, I think, although I always suspect that I had loved him even before.
It is strange to feel ecstatic as the two of them are ultimately discomforted. Stretched, my elbow on the back of the chair behind me, I play with my hair; two decades ago it would have been directed at Thom as a display of desirability. Today it is carelessness. I let myself delight in this utter freefall before saving the situation. We have to be at the studio early tomorrow, I say, and Jeff lets out an inaudible sigh.
We walk home through a dark empty street, our shoes echoing. There are at least three feet between us, and Thom’s hands are stuck in the pockets of his trousers. He refuses to speak to me, appears deep in thought, and I think there’s a trace of pain on his pale face.
“Wonderful place, isn’t it?” I say as we walk through the front door of our house and he throws his keys on the side table with a loud clank.
“Lovely,” he grumbles and proceeds to the kitchen.
We don’t fall asleep instantly because it is too humid and cold, and we shiver under the blankets as he tries to pretend I do not exist next to him. I slide my hand over his stomach, warmly, and he exhales fully, as if releasing all the air from the inside, to replace it completely. I caress him the way I wanted to in that room, long time ago, when I thought of passing my fingers over his neck with its butter-smooth skin.
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I don't think I've said everything I wanted to, but for the sake of belletristics, let it be.
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