Page 193 of Two Marlboros

“I really don’t understand you. It will be the last time you see each other, and you want it, he wants it, you have the chance...”

My dam was beginning to leak all over the place. I was rushing from crack to crack, trying to contain the bleeding, but all it took was a moment’s distraction to see my efforts thwarted.

“It’s complicated, Ash. It’s complicated.”

I thought back to Oliver, to the news of his death, to how I had felt and how I had wished for death myself. I didn’t want to fall back into that vortex, I didn’t want to feel the darkness inside anymore, the despair that emptiness had left. Of course, Nathan was not Oliver, and what I felt for him was not comparable to what I felt for the man I wanted to marry, yet...

“In my opinion you are the one making things complicated, because in reality the situation is very simple. You fell in love, there’s nothing wrong with that, and it wasn’t at all expected to happen so soon. And I think, in light of that, it’s much more exhausting for you to hold back what you feel than to let go.”

Letting go - it really seemed like a possibility out of time. I had learned in those two months to restrain every uncomfortable thought and had never thought about the possibility of living a little less restrained.

Immediately, however, my thoughts were interrupted by the flash of the photo I kept on my bedside table. Again, the censure, again a justification I felt I had to find.

“It’s just that I promised myself I would be faithful to Oliver and...”

“Alan,” and he put a hand on my shoulder, “if you really want to put it on that level, know that you don’t have to sleep with someone else to call it ‘cheating’. That is already there the moment you desire another person next to you, or you just desire them, and it seems to me that in your case it has already happened, so...”

“...So, we might as well go through with it.”

Ash patted my shoulder. “Good, I see we understand each other.”

Somehow it made sense. It was the same thing I had thought when Nathan had kissed me at Webster Hall that night. And there I had hoped that the guilt would be enough to suppress my feelings, maybe to the point of making them go away, but it hadn’t happened. Because those feelings had grown to occupy a space inside me that I could no longer ignore, and the more I tried to squash them, the more they grew. Listening to them would have meant putting Oliver aside, putting him aside forever. To begin again.

I sighed.

It would have been an announced suicide because I knew full well that with Nathan it would not just be sex, since I was - I was in love with him. And at that thought I felt a piece of my dam give space completely. Was there anything I could do, other than stand by and watch as everything fell apart?

“Hey,” he added out of nowhere, patting me on the back again. “Try to let go, give me a break. And you don’t necessarily have to go all the way. And at worst you can always think of it as a farewell party, so if it really doesn’t go well, you don’t even have the embarrassment of having to deal with it.”

“Going all the way…” - it had been quite a few months since I had done that. But he was right: I could even start with somethingsofterlike a hug and test the waters from time to time, without necessarily having unrealistic expectations. And maybe that was what terrified me, namely that the chances of Nathan rejecting a hug or kiss from me were practically nil.

“...It’s just that I know that if he gives me a finger, I’ll want to take his whole arm.”

He shrugged. “I don’t see where the problem lies, if he agrees too.”

“The problem is that then I will have to separate from him. Right now, I think I can handle it, but if I were to let go, I don’t know if-”

Ash laid a hand on my forearm. “That’s the real risk you have to decide whether to take, dear Alan. And anyway, if I may make a prediction, I have a feeling that thispassion firebetween you will break out anyway, with or without your permission.”

I barely huffed. How many times had Nathan and I come close? And each time I had felt less and less resistance on my part, just as if that fire was just waiting for the right moment to flare up without warning.

In the end, it was a question of whether I still wanted that flat encephalogram to keep me company or whether I wanted to make the values spike high, with the risk of them going down with the same intensity. And there was a danger that dragging me down was also Oliver and the guilt that, I knew, would ensue.

I was about to say something to break that silence, but the image of Church in the doorway of the cafeteria beckoning us to follow him forced us to stop that conversation.

I left half a sandwich on my plate to my regret, but in return I ended that break with a strange feeling on me, because despite all the talk, all the convictions, and all the absolute willingness not to listen to Ash, I still had to deal with that something calledinstinct, the same instinct that had led me, that day at the station, to have my first talk with Nathan.

The meeting with Church turned out to be just a miserable grooming, followed by an overview of the new cases we had to deal with. The fact that he had not decided to throw us out I interpreted as a good sign, which made me go home relieved.

I turned the keys in the lock and entered my apartment. I laid the files in my room and let a sigh take away all the stress I had accumulated. Sitting on the bed, I slipped off my shoes when my gaze fell on the photo I kept on my nightstand. Oliver. Suddenly I felt so wrong for what I was feeling, for that grip on my chest that was all and only for Nathan. The memory of thetalk with Ash made me think back to those intimate moments in the shower, but most of all I was reminded of the images that had lingered in my mind during those minutes of pleasure, images that over time had turned from chaste kisses to full intercourse.

God, did I long for it. But I knew that giving in to that temptation would be like playing with fire, and that the chances of burning myself were very high, because to let go of Nathan would mean suffering like a dog from his departure, more than would have already happened. Nevertheless, I let certain images in my head flow without a structure, free as they had longed to be. And there was Nathan, in front of me, on me, his lips on mine - and Oliver as a spectator. Him watching us, with that slightly mocking smile that seemed to mock all the times I had thought I would never get out of it, while in that mental outburst I was there, voracious on Nathan, shaping the only desire I had had in the last while.

But then the stream of consciousness gave way to the thoughts, and everything acquired a rational superstructure, and all those that did not find their space and their label found themselves either in the rubble or buried inside a locked drawer, switched off. Because while I was thinking about making love to Nathan - yes, I hadn’t gotten to that idea in time, but that was the destination, wasn’t it? - I also thought that we wouldn’t have a future. Maybe there was a chance, but only if Nathan would stay. Yeah, would he have done that?

I remembered the question I had asked him to show him I cared about him, a question he had never answered. Could he have changed his mind about leaving?

I pulled the phone out of my pocket and called him. As I waited for him to answer, I thought that we had been talking often during that last period, and my impression that it had become a daily necessity was reinforced.

---