Come Down II.5

With my weekends increasingly occupied, not that I told him the source of the occupation, Angus had taken the unprecedented step of inviting me over on a weeknight, even specifying that if I packed a toothbrush and a change of clothes he’d be happy to drive me to work the following day, since he had to go in early anyway for a research consultation. I am ashamed to say that -- preoccupied as I was with the endlessly stimulating puzzle of what to wear and how to behave at any given party, considering the theme and the likely attendees and the remaining clean clothes in my wardrobe, to maximize the possibility that I would go home with Élouan or potentially both Élouan and Dolly, or at least that someone would make out with me in front of a crowd -- I hardly noticed what a leap the invitation was, how strongly a weeknight and a shared morning commute connoted stability, even monogamy. In my distractible and fevered state, I interpreted it as yet another instance of Angus being Angus. Reliable, practical, considerate, et cetera.

I sat at his kitchen table in his lovely top-floor apartment, with its big windows and its matching coral-colored dishes and its books everywhere, and offered to help with dinner -- help he insisted he didn’t need -- and sipped the glass of white wine he had poured me and related a bubbly, sanitized version of the most recent Backwash and my encounter with Nicky and Jet.

“It feels like it shouldn’t be that easy,” I said. “It’s going to go to my head.”

“How so?”

“Well, either they offer a dancing gig to anyone brave enough to ask, which means I’m brave, or they only offer them to people who impress them, which means I’m a good dancer. I win either way.”

Angus snorted. “How much will they pay you?”

“I’m not sure yet. People bring cash for the dancers, but I don’t know if they’re going to cut me a check on top of that or if I’ll strictly be working for tips. I should ask Élouan, they might know.”

Angus flipped the pork chops with silicone-tipped tongs. “Élouan -- as in the actor, Élouan? Your professor?”

“That’s the one,” I said, putting my wine down, casual, nonchalant, even as hearing them referred to as such lit up the part of me that delighted in the sordid, not to mention the part of me that delighted in the association between us. “I’ve been going to parties with them and their friends on occasion.”

“Hm.” He pursed his lips. He’d trimmed his beard recently, and it clung handsomely to his jawline. It would be scratchy, I knew, when he kissed me, and while I didn’t mind the feeling -- there was something wonderful about the stinging when I washed my face after being with Angus -- I worried I would still look red, rashy, the next time I went out.

“Hm?” I prompted.

“Well, I’m in no place to talk about workplace conduct.”

I pushed myself back from the table and stood behind him, wrapping my arms around his stomach while he fidgeted with the pork chops. “You’re really not.”

“I just can’t imagine going after a student.”

“They didn’t ‘go after’ me,” I said, “and anyway I was never really their student. I’m not an undergrad.”

“True enough.” Angus leaned the tongs against the lip of the pan and swiveled in my embrace until he was facing me. He leaned down to kiss me -- one cheek, then the other, then my lips.

“Don’t worry about me,” I said as he withdrew.

“I worry about everyone younger than me. And everyone older than me.” He shrugged. “Fifty-one is the perfect age to be. Plenty of experience, no gout.”

“I don’t honestly believe people get gout these days.”

“My granddad did.”

“Your granddad who would have been born in -- I’m just estimating here -- 1920?”

“Close enough.”

“You have a funny definition of ‘these days.’”

Angus laughed his rumbling laugh and turned off the stove. “Food’s up,” he said.

We never spoke much when we ate -- Angus’ cooking merited my full attention, and that night’s pork chops with a bright, mustardy pan sauce and burst cherry tomatoes and green salad were no exception -- but when I had drained my wine and my plate was mostly clear, I looked up at him as he dabbed his mouth with a napkin.

“I thought you wanted me to get into trouble,” I said. “Stop boring myself with my own thoughts all the time.”

“I do.”

“Well, this is the most exciting my life has been since college. Maybe ever.”

“Glad to hear it.” He reached across the table, palm up, for my hand. “Just consider me part of your trouble, would you?”

“As if you could ever bore me,” I said, taking his hand, although mine was sticky from the wine and the warm food and the stove-heated kitchen and the fact that the gesture, hands clasped across a kitchen table, reminded me distinctly of the little motions Rachel and Zach would make toward each other, unnecessary married-couple reminders of one’s continued presence in the other’s space. Angus squeezed my hand, and -- although I regretted it at once and squeezed him back harder to make up for it, although I asked him to put music on, classic show tunes for us both to sing along to while I washed the dishes, which was the least I could do considering what a wonderful meal he’d made, although I knew it wasn’t fair -- I felt a flash of revulsion coupled with a wrenching, weed-scented desire to take the edge off that revulsion. I couldn’t help thinking it. Where’s Élouan when you need them?

My powers of summoning had not faded in the months since I had first seen them onstage. After the dishes were done and my hands were dry and Angus had brushed his teeth (as he preferred to do between food and sex) and we had made an incoherent tangle of his sheets and he had told me, already beginning to doze, that I was to help myself to any of his shower products and a clean towel from the linen closet and that he already had an alarm set for the morning so I needn’t worry about it, my phone buzzed with an Instagram notification.

@allforonewegage requested my presence at their apartment, effective immediately.

I can’t, I wrote back, eyeing Angus’ broad chest as it rose and fell beside me, my pulse suddenly audible. I’m busy.

Their reply came at once. Can’t you, though?

I paced out to Angus’ desk in the living room and wrote a message on a sticky note shaped like Snoopy’s head explaining that I didn’t want to wake him, but I had experienced a sudden longing for my own bed and would text when I was home. I left the note stuck to his bedside table and crept out the door and down the stairs. Twenty minutes later, as my Uber dropped me off, I texted Angus to assure him of my safety and my plans to get a good night’s sleep and my gratitude for our evening together. I knew he wouldn’t read it until morning, but when he did, he would see what time I had sent it and that time would comport with the information on the sticky note and all would be well. I double-checked to make sure the text had been delivered.

Then I let Élouan know I had arrived.

They didn’t come down to retrieve me as they had the previous time; rather, they let me know that all of the relevant doors were unlocked and reminded me to remove my shoes on my way up. I did so, leaving them in the pile with the boots and the Crocs and the other detritus, and sought out Adelaide (curled up in a soft, ragged-edged ball on the old leather couch) for an offering of head scratches before knocking softly on Élouan’s bedroom door.

“Come in,” they called, and I did, and the scene with which I was presented had evidently been staged for my benefit, an artificiality which made me enjoy it all the more: Élouan, purple highlighter in one hand, paper-bound libretto of Damn Yankees in the other, sat on the bed with their back against the wall, blackout curtains and window both open to the hot night air, dressed only in an untied bathrobe whose wine-purple silk sleeves waterfalled off their wrists while the rest of it puddled uselessly beneath their hips and thighs, concealing nothing. They flicked their eyes up to me as I eased the door shut, half-smiled, and highlighted another line in the libretto.

“Don’t tell me they have you playing Applegate,” I said.

“Lola, actually. It’s an all-trans cast.” They gave me another look, then patted the bed beside them. “Take all that off and come here.”

“Well, whatever Lola wants,” I teased, already yanking my t-shirt over my head.

A joint smoldered in a small ceramic ashtray on the windowsill. They tucked the highlighter behind their ear as I undressed, picked up the joint, and took a long drag. They held it, blew it out the window, then offered it to me. I paused, underwear and socks still on, and padded over, trying at first not to step on any of their clothes on the floor before giving up and feeling them squish and crumple beneath my feet. We smoked until there wasn’t enough joint left to hold between two fingers, at which point Élouan crushed it out in the ashtray and returned to their libretto.

When I was naked, I climbed into the bed and sat beside them, but they shook their head and, not pausing the motion of their highlighter, jerked their chin toward the space between their bent knees.

“Seriously?” I asked.

“Entertain me.”

“That’s what we’re doing now?”

Élouan smiled down at the page in front of them. “We only do things you want, Marco. You can always say no. You know that.”

“I appreciate having it confirmed nonetheless.”

“So?”

I took a deep breath, blew the air out my pursed lips, keeping Élouan in the corner of my vision all the while. The motion of their hands -- highlighting a line, flipping a page -- was extravagantly airy, careless, silk sleeves billowing every which way. What I wanted was for them to pay attention to me.

I scrambled awkwardly into a curled-over kneeling position between their legs, which they spread incrementally more to aid me but did nothing else to acknowledge my presence, and took them in my mouth. The taste combined with the inherent nausea of the weed and my full stomach nearly made me retch, but I pushed through it and soon enough the act became meditative, just bobbing my head and twisting my wrist, feeling like a buoy tied up in some tropical sea. Élouan let out a soft hiss, but when I glanced up at them, the extremity of the angle straining my eyes, they had pressed their lips into a flat line and were scanning another page. A few minutes later and a few beats faster in my movements, I heard the sound of crumpling paper as they bunched a corner of Damn Yankees in their fist. I kept going. Aside from an occasional sharp breath or quiet groan, they made no noise, and I couldn’t tell how much was pleasure and how much was performance (not that I particularly minded either way), even when they finally set the libretto and highlighter aside and grabbed my head with both hands, holding me in place as they came and at last I swallowed uncomfortably, bitter, nearly sickening. I wondered whether I had an unusually delicate stomach, whether it warranted making the first doctor’s appointment of my adult life at a real clinic rather than with student health services. But the feeling passed, and I wiped my mouth on the back of my hand.

“Mmm.” Élouan tipped their head back against the wall and sighed contentedly. “You’re not so bad at that.”

“Not so bad,” I repeated, scooting up to sit next to them. “Is that all?”

“What would you prefer?”

“‘Good’ would be a start.” I leaned in and kissed their neck. “‘Exceptional,’ maybe. You don’t even have to be coherent about it; I don’t mind if you’d rather just swear.”

Élouan laughed, tugging my head away from their neck, and turned to say something to me but stopped before whatever it was came out of their mouth. Instead, they asked, “You alright there?”

“What? Where?”

They gestured at my chin. “You’re all red.”

“Oh, I was at my boyfriend’s place earlier,” I said, the lie -- the truth -- the hand-holding at the kitchen table -- whatever Angus was to me -- slipping out in a voice I kept as casual as possible even as I studied Élouan’s face for any microscopic hint of a reaction. “He just trimmed his beard.”

“You have a boyfriend.” It was a statement, not a question, matching my throwaway tone.

“Didn’t I tell you?”

“How long?”

“Since before I knew you.” I paused. “Actually, we saw Lady Windermere’s Fan together back in January. You were quite good.”

“Always an honor to meet my fans,” Élouan said, poking me in the side with a finger. I squirmed away, making them chuckle.

“Hardly. I’ve only ever seen one of your performances. Well, two, if you count Faustus. And three if you count your little routine just now with the script and the highlighter.”

They flicked their eyebrows up, the only acknowledgement my jab was going to get, and said, “So you left your boyfriend’s place to come here?”

“We’re not exclusive.”

“Did you tell him you were leaving to fuck someone else?”

“Should I have?”

Somewhere in the night, probably a few streets over, someone revved their engine, and a dog barked listlessly a few times before things settled back into quiet. The air on either side of the open window was equally warm and sticky. A wicked smile spread, bit by bit, over Élouan’s lips, crinkling the corners of their pale eyes, and they looked at me like they had never seen me before and were surprised and delighted to find that someone had, without them noticing, dropped a midnight snack into their lap.

“Lay down,” they said, frisbeeing the libretto and highlighter onto the ground near their toolboxes, gesturing down at the crumpled sheets.

“Bit abrupt, don’t you think?”

“I’ll make it worth your while.” The smile still firmly in place, their eyes sparkling. 

I laid down.

Élouan stuck two fingers into their mouth and, shortly after, into me, then out, then in, and they kept going for I had no idea how long. It lasted through my first wave of floaty ecstasy into pain and back up again, maybe multiple times, I was breathing too hard and too fast, I had lost track of time, my limbs, the volume of my voice, everything but the soft flapping sound of the sleeve of Élouan’s robe as it swished back and forth, brushing against my thigh with every thrust, but finally I was shaking and the rarely-considered muscles in my hips and inner thighs ached, seizing so hard I struggled to relax them, and Élouan stopped.

“There,” they said, wiping their hand on the black sheets, leaving a visible stain behind. “That should hold you.”

“Not for long,” I said, my voice unsteady.

“No?”

“Now that I know you can do that to me I’d like you to do it as often as possible.” That, too, I said without the gravity it might have merited if it were entirely true, volleying it at them in hopes that they would notice neither how sick I felt nor how frequently I intended to fantasize about this evening later on.

Élouan laid down next to me, propped up on one elbow, their face very close to mine. “You mean your boyfriend doesn’t do that to you?”

“Not exactly.”

“Didn’t think so.” They kissed me hard, then broke away and angled their head towards the bedroom door. “I’ve got a morning rehearsal. I’ll see you.”

I stumbled, repeatedly, as I dressed myself. My legs felt like they belonged to someone else. My head felt the same way. Each attempt to play off my wobbling threw me out of equilibrium in another direction. I gave up on my socks, tucking them in the pocket of my shorts and giving Élouan a wave over my shoulder as I left.

“If you ever want help running lines,” I said, leaving the second half of the sentence dangling.

They were already back at the libretto. “Get home safe,” they said.

~

I called out of work the next day. My head was massive, heavy, barren, and the walk to the bathroom and back saw me in a cowboy stance, limping and cringing with each step forward. Being in the bathroom was hardly better; everything prickled and burned. My supervisor wasn’t pleased with me, but I’d only taken one sick day since starting at the university and had quite a backlog built up, so there was nothing she could say.

I went back to bed and didn’t wake up until it was dark. Angus had texted me, asking whether everything was okay, wondering where I’d been at work. I informed him that I was sick but I’d be fine, just had to sleep it off, hopefully he hadn’t caught anything from me last night, but either way I’d see him soon, thanks for dinner. 

I fell asleep again.

Might Makes Write and all the writing shared herein are licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.