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Hot breath dancing across his face, the taste of salt flooding his mouth, a slide of skin, wet and warm. A steady torrent of please, please, please as nails dug into his shoulder and fingers fought for purchase in his hair.
Jim awoke fuzzy headed, warm, wrapped around another, and aching in places that he hasn’t in so long. It was so easy to lean into the warmth, to pull it closer and breathe in the scent of someone else.
Cigarette smoke and sweat, he smiled, vague memories of last night coming to surface.
He nestled into the softness, a haven reeking of debauchery and aftershave.
His eyes shot open, raven-hair clouding his vision.
Jim didn’t wear aftershave.
“Oh god, no.”
Scotch on his lips and regret on his tongue, he’d made a huge mistake last night.
“Oh god, please no.”
Recollection came back with dizzying force. Everything he’d done, everything he’d said, everything Oswald had said, hit him all at once and he couldn’t think about anything but the need to get out. The man he was tangled up in no longer a warm safe haven, but an obstacle impeding his getaway.
He moved like he was in a den of lions, wary of the other in the room. Each shift, each rustle of cloth, every footstep he took put him on edge, that when his hand grasped cold metal it seemed almost too good to be true.
“Jim.”
It was.
He turned to face his own personal firing squad, the gaze of the man he’d made love to last night.
The gaze of the man he had been caught trying to ditch the next morning.
Oswald stared at him, a mask of indifference so obviously a mask that Jim could not meet his eyes any longer.
The silence grew thick, but Jim could still hear him.
A demanding plea
Don’t stop, please, I can’t-James, please don’t stop!
A whispered prayer
Oh god, I’ve never-I don’t know how, please show me how.
A moaned confession
Yours, yours, yours, only yours, forever yours.
“Don’t wake mother on your way out.”
The silence shattered, but the tension remained sharp and unforgiving.
Jim’s shoulders slumped as Oswald turned away, and Jim knew without a shadow of a doubt he was the biggest piece of shit on the planet. The web of scars, both old and new, stretching across Oswald’s back were his dismissal.
His hand felt cold around the knob. Warmth just a memory in a room left behind.