Page 43 of The Club

He said it last night, and I couldn’t respond. I let myself interpret it sexually, but it wasn’t exclusively sexual.

He’s pulled me off balance. He’s shifted things inside me.

I was going to kill him because of it, so I could go back to how I’ve always been. I didn’t do it because I couldn’t bear for him to be gone from this world. I didn’t do it because, when I saw that path opening before me, the return to my life before him, before my father died, I felt only a cold bleakness. I felt my own death as much as his. A living death, but still a death.

So I chose to own him instead—and I hope that he never realizes the truth: it’shimwho ownsme.

He stretches lazily. His head lifts from my shoulder. The blackout curtains render the room dark, but I can still tell he’s squinting at me.

I wonder if he has a headache. He’s had some rough days.

“Don’t leave,” he says raspingly.

He’s thinking about the moment that I left after sucking him off. How I panicked.

I’ll cut off your cock if I ever catch you acting gay again, you fucking faggot.

I mute my father in my head and promise, “I won’t.”

He’s still squinting, but he smiles. How can he be so depraved and so innocent at the same time?

I’m half hard and so is he, but I don’t want us to fuck right now. He doesn’t either. He crawls over me, stands from the bed, and stretches with a groan. I can’t see any detail with the blackout curtains, but I can imagine. I know his body well.

What it looks like. What it feels like. How it responds.

My cock twitches.

“Shower?” he asks.

“Yeah.”

“M’kay.”

He goes into the bathroom when he sees I’m not getting up. I just need a second.

When he’s gone, I close my eyes. I reach down and touch the thin scar at the base of my cock. Images try to form, but I don’t let them.

Fuck the old man. He’s not taking this from me.

I hear the shower and get up.

The bathroom is as beautiful as the rest of this place. Modern looking but not cold. Spacious. Luxurious. Good lighting.

There’s a packaged toothbrush sitting on the counter. I open it and brush my teeth, highly aware of Rafael’s form beyond the cloudy glass.

When I go to join him, I can see in his eyes that, despite my words, he thought I might leave. He’s happy that I didn’t. Seeing that puts a weird feeling in my chest. It’s so unfamiliar that I don’t even know if it’s good feeling or not.

I take the soapy washcloth from him. As much as Rafael craves touch, this sort of thing seems to make him uncomfortable. That first night in the play room, he tried to escape before I could clean him up. But, for some reason, I like doing this.

I scrub the cloth along his arms and shoulders, then down his chest to his abdomen. I pause at the bruising. Anger wakes up inside me. I back Rafael into the shower wall.

I gently sweep the cloth over the bruise. “Did you understand me last night? About shit like this?”

His stomach contracts. His stiffening cock twitches. I sweep the cloth lower, across that hot-as-fuck tattoo, but I don’t touch his cock. It hardens fully, lifting toward my hand. My own cock is stiff and aching.

“Answer me, Rafael. Do you understand that you’re not going to do shit like you did the other night?”

I watch his throat move as he swallows. He looks away.

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