Page 71 of Untouchable

8

When Harp dreams,it's of imaginary lovers, amorphous and undefined and perfectly lovely. There is certainly a plot or a story to the dream, but as time passes, the moment before seems to slip through Harp's grasp. He lives in the moment of the dream, kissing and being kissed with nothing emotional attached besides the deep contentment he feels.

It's almost the way he's felt around Parker since they talked in the snow—but the feeling in the dream is amplified. It is trust, raised to the power of attraction.

Harp wakes gently from the dream because his bladder is uncomfortably full. He fights waking, wanting the dream to keep going, and the urge to pee gets crossed somewhere in his semi-conscious mind. By the time he comes to, he needs the bathroom and he has an uncomfortably intense hard-on.

At first he mistakes the warm body tucked into his own for Petunia. Sometimes, when it was cold or Harp had simply gotten too drunk to want to go back upstairs, he would fall in with the dogs on the guest bed and wake up with each dog tucked against him at a different angle. But when he goes to stroke the mastiff's flank, he's met with the sensation of soft flannel over firm skin instead of fur.

Parker. Harp puts several things together in his mind at once, not the least of which is the fact that as they slept on the couch, he'd managed to summon up a raging hard-on to rub against his guest.

Harp just breathes for a moment.

Whydid he have to fall asleep like this?

The steady warmth of a beautiful man sleeping against his chest is the last thing Harp wants to feel. It's the exact feeling he's been running from, because thinking of it makes him want it so badly that his heart aches.

And now he has it. But it's like this, and with Parker, and after that stupid dream.

Harp is reminded, starkly, of two basic facts about himself that he continually refuses to acknowledge: that he is very gay, and that he has the capacity to feel very lonely.

It's not that Harp is closeted—well, not anymore. It's simply that he spends the majority of his time ignoring the fact that he even has a sexuality. He'd botched his last and only real relationship so badly—become such a disgusting, selfish person—that he doesn't like to think about the fact that he even has a sex drive.

He treats it the same way someone would treat an unfortunate and embarrassing medical condition: carrying on as best he can without showing any sign of it in public and furtively "taking care" of it as quickly and quietly as possible on his own.

Anything else makes him hate himself too much. Hookups bring up too much of his own misdeeds, and any feeling beyond a hookup just reminds him of his failed marriage.

He has his reasons for staying isolated, and they make good sense. It's better for everyone that way, after all.

Thus, he has to ignore the idea that he could feel lonely. Loneliness, he reasons, is just a subjective emotion that comes and goes depending on how well you've trained your mind.

And Harp has trained his mind extensively.

Still, he could never train out the capacity for loneliness, and that has always bothered him. He's simply been operating as if it weren't true.

But waking up this way, after a dream of careful and attentive lovers, to find himself curled up with Parker—the visceral reality of it reminds Harp that he does have a sexuality, that he's not just an unfeeling puppet piloted around by a super-focused mind. He's reminded, too, of the way it feels to be lonely—the way he never wants to feel again.

He hates it with all his being. Harp pulls away as quietly as he can, trying to somehow exit from the inside edge of the couch without waking Parker.

Slowly, he does it, towering over Parker as he straddles him and then balances as he moves to stand. Parker stays asleep. He breathes deep and his eyelids flutter, making him look especially delicate in the dimness of the living room. The fire is still crackling softly. Harp drags a hand down his groin and feels miserable.

Harp hits the guest bathroom on the middle floor and then begins pulling on warm clothes. Maybe a walk will clear his head—and he wants to see if the cats moved into the shelter they built the day before.

It feels like weeks ago when they’d been getting things put together downstairs. Things had gotten so complicated that afternoon and then they’d gotten so… simple. Maybe unguarded friendship could be simple, for once.

As long as you don’t spoil it by being a creepshow.

The night is still and bright. Harp marches to the road and then begins up the path to one corner of the cleared land where he can look back and survey things.

Embarrassment still feels molten in his chest.

You’re attracted to him and he’s just a kid.

Harp can’t lie to himself anymore about it. Of course he’s attracted to Parker—someone would have to be blind not to be. Parker is probably exhausted from people throwing themselves at his feet.

Good,he thinks. Then he’ll be able to forgive you for waking up with your cock pressed into his back you fucking oaf.

But it’s true, he realizes: if Parker had woken up and noticed, he had clearly forgiven Harp— or hadn’t gone running for a guest bedroom at any rate. And if he hadn’t woken up then all the better.

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