Page 9

T hat hadn’t gone to plan. Well, my plan? I’d thought long and hard about what Juliet had said, tried to make sense of her weird insane outburst there, sat on my sofa yelling at me. Mostly she had been yelling at Bastien, the universe, life.

I knew what heartbreak looked like, and I hated that Juliet was going through all of it on her own. She didn’t have anyone to hold her when she needed it the most, not even me, because I had done this. Part of it. I had actually known what I was doing that night, even though I didn’t want to really admit that. A weird state of rage and heartbreak had turned me into someone that wasn’t me. And Juliet had been raging yesterday for almost an hour, making me late for my first client of the day.

She’d calmed in the end, not even apologising for the mess she left behind. Cushions on the floor. Her cup tipped over on the coffee table.

I deserved it. And she had needed that. I was sure it wasn’t the end of it, and the ranting texts I took on my phone for the rest of the day? Juliet was reeling through it all, and I didn’t blame her.

Nor did I blame Bastien, because what the hell had Juliet been on about? I’d been racking my brain most of the day, trying to figure out what had been going on there. Some of it I knew. Juliet’s oversharing was something I had dealt with before. I knew he struggled to orgasm, and he wasn’t coping well with that. I knew how desperate he’d been to make things better, and how he’d felt useless and worthless when he couldn’t.

I was slowly starting to see why, and my questions were never ending.

So were my tears, because however much I thought I’d been coping with all of this, I clearly wasn’t. Surprise.

No surprise, actually. I was sobbing, lying here in a heap of my own doing, trying to figure out how we’d both gone so wrong. How I’d read it all wrong. Almost made a massive mistake. I wasn’t ready for this. Neither was he.

I was too angry. Too hurt. Still too emotionally raw to do anything rationally. Nor was I ready to give him all this. Never in anger, Jake. Ever.

“I’m sorry,” I sniffled against his back, his fingers having found mine and tangled themselves up into a firm grip. God I’d needed that. Anything. A little bit of affection from the man I couldn’t stop loving. Despite everything, every harsh word, every little bit of rejection ?

I felt so rejected, in spite of everything he’d let me do to him. And the fact that I’d started finding him in my bed. Him being right here in my arms. His slim fingers gripping my thick ones back. A small comfort. Something to hold on to.

“I have been trying to make sense of everything, Bastien. It’s driving me mad. Why the fuck did you not tell me? I mean, you knew. You knew I was into all of this, you must have done, and you didn’t once own up that you might be too? You knew I struggled with things sometimes, and you didn’t once tell me you knew how I felt? You know me. You fucking know me!”

I was angry. I couldn’t help it. And he said nothing. Not that I expected him to.

“I suppose I didn’t talk much about these things either,” I ranted on, “but it wasn’t like I woke up one day thinking, oh, I like fucking blokes! It doesn’t work like that, and you must have known that too. I knew I liked boys when I was a kid. It was never a surprise to me, and I just kept it like that. I didn’t hide it. I just chose to be discreet about it. ”

“Fuck you.”

A sudden outburst. Yeah. Perhaps I deserved that. Not being quite truthful there, so I just kept talking. Or half shouting. I couldn’t control my emotions, nor my tone of voice it seemed.

“I didn’t tell anyone about it because those first hookups I had were bloody awful. I couldn’t tell you either because I didn’t want you to know. Didn’t want to admit how bad everything made me feel. It took me years to figure out what made me tick. What I liked. How I liked to fuck people.”

“Fuck people,” he mocked me, in a voice that sounded small. I didn’t blame him because I was still sobbing. My snotty nose against his back. I tried to wipe it with the sheet, but I didn’t want to let go of him. I somehow felt that if I did, I would lose him forever. Lose this small part of him where I got to hold him. Be close to him. Where he didn’t run off and find another girlfriend. Leaving me on the outside again, looking in at the life he was living with hardly any part of it. I’d lived like this for years, and I’d had enough.

“I hate not being part of your life. I hate when you’re off with other people and doing things and I just sit here on my own wondering if this is the time when I’ll lose you forever.”

“You’re not on your own. You fuck people.”

He was talking. I squeezed his fingers tighter.

“I don’t fuck people that matter. I fuck guys who need what I like to give, where I’m in total control, and I like when I don’t ever see them again. That’s what works for me.”

“Brutal,” he said quietly.

The relief that he was talking to me was immense. “True. But it’s the only thing that works when your heart belongs to someone else. It’s not easy to just switch off when you love someone. You know this.”

I think he nodded. At least he made a sound, acknowledging my small admission. He must have known. Juliet knew. She said she always had.

“I didn’t think you wanted…someone like me.”

Oh god. Here were the tears again. My eyes squeezed shut as I held onto him. Oh, Bastien. Did he have any idea what he did to me?

“You’re not an easy man to love,” came out of me with more force than I expected. “But I have. From the first day I met you. It’s just like it is, and I have spent my whole life dealing with it. And I still do. I deal with it every day. Like I am dealing with it right here. I am lying here thinking that if I let go of you now, you’ll leave me and never come back. And then I’ll go on forever not being…yours. It’s all I ever wanted to be, yours. The one you loved back.”

Fuck me and my bloody emotions. Enough, Jake. Fucking enough.

“I think Flossie has pooped on the floor. I can smell it.”

I laughed. A weird bit of relief, where I felt so tense that I thought I would just shatter.

He let go of me, and moved, and as he did my whole body tensed up. Like I’d just laid myself bare, right here on a Saturday morning, and he would just walk away. Leave me to lie here, broken and crushed.

He didn’t. He just turned around and scooped me up, let my head come to a rest against his chest. His stupid T-shirt all crumpled. Wet on the back from my tears no doubt. I bunched up the fabric in my hand and held on to him as he wriggled around, tugged the duvet over my back and sighed. Then we lay there in the silence. Flossie running around, yapping out in the living room, but it was almost like time stood still. Just for a little while.

“I didn’t know…how you felt,” he said, almost like he was tasting the words. “Not until Juliet told me, and even then, I didn’t. I still don’t get what is going on here. Why I behaved the way I did that night. And most of all why you let me.”

“You let me. I was off my head too, but Bastien?” I lifted my head and made him look at me. My finger tilting his chin. Back in control. Fuck. I needed to be in control here. “I have no regrets. Zero. Absolutely none. Because, like I said, it took me years to figure out what I like, and with that I learnt a thing or two about my partners. And looking back, I should have seen things, and done things differently, years ago. Because it was always there. The way I felt around you and the way you reacted to things I said. And if I’d been braver and more on the ball, I might have acted on it and we would have been in a different place now.”

“Or things would have gone horribly wrong.”

“Maybe. ”

He was right. But I felt better now, having finally almost stopped the crying. I wasn’t even embarrassed about that, instead feeling more in control.

“You are brilliant, hardworking and successful. I don’t need to know anything about what you do at work to know that. You’re sharp and clever and straightforward.”

“Work is simple. Easy rules and I just follow them. Even when I have to pit up and play the numbers against each other, there are still rules. But out of work I just feel like everything is chaotic. Especially now.”

“I get that,” I mumbled into his chest. How lovely this was. Just lying here, talking to him. Listening to his soft voice rumbling in his chest. His breaths. The steady beat of his heart.

“You keep saying that I need things. That you will give me what I need. I don’t know what the fuck I need, Jake, but what do you need? I mean, yeah, all right, there are feelings there, as strange as it seems to me, but the hell, Jake. You need to talk too.”

Wow. We were actually doing this. Talking.

“This,” I answered. I was as bad as him. One-word answers. “It’s hard to explain how this would all pan out. In an ideal world I want you in my life. As my partner. But I don’t even know how you feel about me. About this. About the fact that you let me fuck you, yet you were going to marry Juliet, and I haven’t got a fucking clue about what is going on in your head.”

Bad move, Jake. Bad move. I could feel him tense up, his breath back to small huffs. But I just couldn’t stop myself.

“I just know that sometimes you feel out of control, but I know you, I know what you’re like, and then I hear all these things about you, and it just doesn’t add up, Bastien.”

Another huff. Silence. A long, drawn-out breath.

“You need to ask, then,” he whispered.

We were on the same page. Thank fuck for that.

“When did you first get with a man?”

He snickered, half flustered. His arm rising and then falling back onto my shoulder, moving to my head. Soft strokes through my hair. I wasn’t kidding when I’d said I needed this. Being held. Feeling close to him .

“Get with a man,” he repeated, softly mocking me. “First time I let someone fuck me was one of those stupid drunk encounters. Thought it would be a good idea at the time. It was a bloody disaster, because he was a bit rough, and I was terrified, but then at the same time? I fucking loved it. Not the best thing to happen to a straight bloke.”

Good stuff. I tapped him gently on the chest. Laid my head back down. He wouldn’t look at me anyway. I didn’t expect him to.

“See, I’m not like you,” he continued, his voice stronger. “I’m not one of these gay blokes. I love women. Really love girls, and everything they are. I love the company, and the curves and softness, and nice boobs and all the hair…” He drew a breath, moved gently in what I thought might have been frustration. “It’s a problem. A huge fucking problem.”

I nodded, because that part made sense.

“Thank you for talking to me. I really need this.” It felt good to tell him. I hoped he knew how good he was doing. How much we probably both needed this.

“I don’t. Does my head in. ”

“You do know that it’s perfectly normal,” I tried to reassure him. “There are even words for it. You don’t actually need the words though. You just need to be you. Because there are people who love you, just the way you are. You know that, don’t you?”

“Yeah, see how well that went with Juliet. And Kathryn. I fucked that one up really well too.”

Okay. I remembered Kathryn. Never got to the bottom of that little dramatic breakup. Apart from that Jake had spent weeks here on my sofa. I was starting to see a pattern. An uncomfortable one.

“You can’t go on like this.”

“Fucking right,” he sighed.

“Okay.” I took control. Because someone bloody had to. “I have more questions, but for now I’m going to get you up and get us some tea and toast. Clear up Flossie’s mess and take her out. I can definitely smell it now. Unless you farted.”

I was trying to make a joke, but he just sighed.

“Bastien. This is what is going to happen now.” Control. He needed it, and I took it. “This weekend? I will change the rules around here. I will be in charge, and I will look after you. You won’t have to think or make decisions or even lift a finger. I want you to just relax and let me, for once, properly care for you. But I need your consent, because I might make you do things you won’t like.”

“Like what?” Here was bratty Bastien, right on cue. “You gonna make me scrub the floor?”

I sat myself up. Pulled him up as well, once again facing him on the bed. His white crumpled T-shirt. His hair on edge. That beautiful face on him scrunched into a nervous scowl.

“I’m going to ask you questions. You are going to answer them. And if you don’t? There will be consequences. I will be in charge and you?”

“Do as I’m told?” Snarky little shit.

“Yes.” He was looking right at me. Solid. So beautiful in his fragile self. His eyes all glassy as I leant forward and kissed him, just softly tasting his lips.

He let me, kissing me back. Nips of my lips that went straight to my stupid heart.

“Do you trust me?” I questioned again, staring him down. He didn’t look away. I wouldn’t let him.

“Yes,” he said quietly. “I don’t get it, though. What you want. ”

“You do as I say. As you’re told. And you let me make the rules. All weekend.”

There was a small smile there. But also fear. God help us both.

“Okay,” he whispered.

“Okay.” I smiled. “You,” I repeated, holding his chin between my fingers. “Will be mine. All weekend. And I promise you, that by Monday? This will all have been worth it.”