Page 49 of The Idiot

He’s stroking himself. In earnest. He’s into it, or me, or something. I don’t even care what at this point. I catch little puffs of breath escaping his lungs, the kind he makes in my fantasies, and I can’t keep silent any longer.

“Yes,” I whisper in approval, making my face burn, but then I realize it probably sounds like I’m just into the film. When I hear him grunt, however, I can’t help but repeat with more vigor, “Yes.”

I want to learn all his noises. I have no idea what will happen after this is over, or if I drank that entire bottle of scotch and am just passed out, hallucinating, but I’m putting every gasp to memory. It might be the last memory I get of him, but it’ll be enough to live off for a lifetime without him.

The receptionist sinks into the guest up to his pubic bone, giving me ideas I don’t need. He does it over and over. It’s just skin slapping against skin at this point.

The stifled noises coming from Jesse have me wanting to glance over at him so badly, but I’m terrified doing so will shatter whatever has him participating in this surreal bonding. He’s still working himself, though, right along with me. We sound like we’re giving a lurid applause with each urgent squelch of our strokes. And the thought of my spit around his cock is making me want to tackle him to the floor.

“Shit,” he gasps.

The prospect of him coming because of something from my world has me feral. I can feel him squirm against the mattress, fighting it. So, I do what any good friend would do, offer encouragement.

“Uhn, I’m going to come,” I grunt. It’s not a far-off truth, but I don’t want to miss Jesse’s moment.

Shifting my hips up, I reach for my balls and roll them. I don’t know why, but I want him to see more of me. I’ve never thought I was anything physically great, nothing worth showing off, but what I have, I want him to see. I want him to leave here with visions of me, just as my visions of him will haunt me.

“Fuck,” he whispers and lets out a strangled cry.

I could swallow that sound, and I do—at least with my ears and my eyes, watching his eyes slam shut as he convulses.Seeing his cock flex and spurt his release onto his stomach sends me over. I doubt he got here because of me, but it’s all the motivation I need to make me come undone. I grunt a painful sound because as much as it’s sweet relief, it’s also agony. Even though he’s here, it’s just another fantasy. I know it.

I can tell by his silence as we sit here panting in the aftermath. I can tell by the way his feet are fidgeting and his clean hand is toying with the sheet on the bed.

Maybe I’m a coward or a glutton, but I don’t want to deal with his freak-out right now, after all. I just want to bask in the sweet part of the agony and go to sleep with the illusion that this meant something. So, I speak in a language he best understands—bro humor.

“I guess you’re going to try stealing this now like you do all my movies.”

He lets out a breathless snort. “That was… nuts. I’m freaking lightheaded. Shit.”

Blinking, I glance over, waiting for some kind of denial, some kind of excuse as to why he came that has nothing to do with men. He’s not even refusing my veiled offer of borrowing my porn.

“Surprised you enjoyed man-on-man?” I venture casually, pulling up my shorts and averting my gaze.

A chuckle. “I don’t know. It’s… skin on skin, like those guys at the strip show. It’s…”

When he doesn’t finish, I have to look back. I need to know. He needs to finish that freaking sentence. Is it possible? How is he not freaking out?

“It’s what?”

Shrugging, he awkwardly tugs his shirt over his head and then wipes his hand on it. I should get up and get him a towel, but I don’t want to interrupt the conversation, nor do I mind seeing him mark up his clothing with what we did.

“It’s… I don’t know. I was horny. Okay? I’ve been horny. I’m always horny, and… well, watching a bunch of people run around the last few days, touching each other, and then the guys dancing and everyone having fun and being cool with it, it just… instills more horniness, I guess. Like there’s sex everywhere. This is a sex ship. It makes you think about sex, you know?”

How do I even dissect that? Because there is so much to dissect.

“Yeah,” I concur dumbly, because I don’t know what else to say.

“Right?” he laughs.

It feels like the moment, if there even was one, has slipped through my grasp now that he’s laughing it off. Skin on skin, even between two men, made him think of sex? I want it to mean more than what he implied, but I have the feeling we’re back to the regularly scheduled programming of our friendship.

Getting up, I duck into the bathroom and clean myself up. The longer I stand on the cool floor tiles, the more they pull me back to reality, leaving me cursing myself. I was right—this will make things awkward, but once again, it’ll be because of me, not Jesse.

When I finally force myself to emerge from the bathroom, I half-expect to find him with his shoes on, ready to make his exit. I do a double take when I locate him still in my bed. Why is he tucked under the covers?

“Dude, what in the Sam Hill is this?” he asks before I can even ask him the same thing.

I track his gaze to the TV. You’d think I’d have had this reaction to him seeing my porn, but it’s worse, so much worse. Why is an episode of Breathless playing? Fuck my life.

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