Page 69 of Rat Park
“Oh, please. As ifyoudon’t want to come onmyface,” Dominic found himself saying. Flor’s grin widened.
“Why yes, I do. Should we…?” One of his hand brushed down the trail of hair below Dominic’s belly button.
“Donot,I swear to God.”
“God is a kinky bastard and wants us to fuck on the beach.”
“That’s—”
“Oh, what’s that?” Flor said, cupping his hands around his ear as if he were listening to something far away. “You want me to give Dominic a facial?Twofacials? All right.” He turned back to Dominic. “You heard the big guy. Let’s get down to business.”
Dominic laughed, shaking his head against the towel. Flor leaned forwards to give him an uncoordinated kiss, mixing the sounds of their laughter together.
“What about you, then?” Flor asked when they settled back down. “Did you get into a lot of trouble when you were a kid?”
Despite all the years they had known each other, Dominic had never said much about his childhood. There was not much to say, in his opinion. He had survived it. It was done.
“With school, I guess.”
“Not with your mom?”
“She didn’t really care. I mean…she loved me, I think. But. She was too caught up with her own shit to take care of a kid.”
Flor made a sound of understanding. “Is she, like…still alive?”
“I think so. I would have heard if she wasn’t, I think,” Dominic said, feeling an unsettling twinge. Somehow, however, amidst the heat of the sand and the sound of the waves, it was easier to open up. To just let it all out. “I’m not really angry at her, for…not being there, I guess. I mean, maybe a part of me is, I don’t know. But. I guess I understand…I think I could have ended up there too. If I were straight, I would have ended up with a kid too, I think. And I don’t know if I could have stayed sober to take care of it.”
“I think you would have,” Flor said with conviction.
Dominic opened his mouth to protest, but Flor raised a hand between their bodies.
“No, I’m not saying this because I think everybody who doesn’t get sober when they have a kid is bad, and everybody who does is good and you’re good, so you would have. I know it’s not that simple. I’m saying it because of whoyouare. I mean, you’re sober now, and you don’t have a kid. And you’re so, like…with people, you’re soawareof what they, like, need? Or want, or something. You just, you feel responsible for the people around you. So. Like. You being you, I think you’d be an amazing dad.”
Dominic stared at Flor. “Amazing dad” was not something he would ever associate with himself.
As if sensing Dominic had no way to respond to all of that, Flor kissed him softly on the cheek, settling closer so that their legs tangled in the shade of the large umbrella.
“Did I tell you about the time I managed to collect a huge stash of candy under my bed, which my mom was very not happy about finding?” Flor murmured conspiratorially.
Dominic shook his head and smiled.
***
Dominic and Flor spent the rest of the day playing in and out of the sand. Dominic agreed to engage in a sandcastle-building competition. Dominic won the award for structural integrity, making a set of tightly packed towers linking together. Flor awarded himself points for imagination, having built a crumbling blob decorated with half the seashells on the beach.
They washed the sand away in the water, and Flor taught Dominic how to catch waves with his chest flat on the boogie board. Dominic got so into it that Flor eventually had to drag him out to eat something before he passed out.
They took a long walk down the shoreline, their hands clasped together. There was a family every few steps, and Dominic looked at the happy children interacting with the sun, building their own fortresses of sand or splashing in the water like fish.
The drive back to Dominic’s was silent and sated. Flor leant his head against the window frame, eyes closed but not sleeping, judging by the innocent hand on Dominic’s thigh.
Dominic watched the sky blush as it undressed into the naked night, revealing a stream of stars above. There, with the radio on low and the thin film of salt over his lips and skin, he knew that was what peace felt like.
Dominic let Flor take the first shower when they arrived at Dominic’s apartment, the stall way too small to attempt anything together. When Dominic came out of his own shower with nothing on but the towel around his waist, Flor was waiting for him with a bottle of after sun in his hands. Flor had just toasted to a slightly darker colour, but Dominic was red on his shoulders and nose. He sat on the edge of the bed with Flor kneeling behind him on the mattress, closing his eyes as Flor spread the balm across stinging skin. Dominic could feel the heat radiate from the slight burn, but Flor’s hands seemed to seep it away, leaving barely an ache behind.
When the cream on Dominic’s shoulders had absorbed, Flor pulled him gently to lie on his back. He spread a dollop of aloe vera on his nose, soothing that too. When he was finished, he punctuated it with a kiss to Dominic’s lips, starting light and soft and then quickly deepening as Dominic rolled them over so that it was Flor underneath him, in the safety net of his arms.
They kissed slow and deep until Flor was squirming on the bed, shifting his hips, searching for friction. Dominic grabbed the lube from the bedside table, stripping Flor of his briefs, his own towel having already fallen away, and settled over him.
