Page 38 of After His Eulogy
“Yeah. Okay.”
“Come here.”
I come there. I come down to him. He kisses me. His hand is on the back of my neck and the kiss is slow. After a minute I’m moving, my mouth on his neck. I move down to the place behind his left ear. The freckle is still there. Of course it is. He’s had it for as long as I’ve known him and never known about it — it’s in a place a person can’t see on himself, and nobody else has ever told him.
I press my mouth to it. He shifts but doesn’t ask. I keep my mouth there a second longer than I need to. Then I keep going, my hand between us, my hand on him. He’s half-hard. Hard enough. I hadn’t been sure what I’d find. He’s hard enough.
I stroke him slow. He makes a sound. Not the same sound as last week, a different one, lower. His hand grips my shoulder. His eyes close. I keep going. I move my mouth down. I put my mouth on his chest. His ribs. His hip. He is making a small steady sound that I have not heard from him in two years and the sound is the same and I am the one making him make it.
“Reed.”
“Yeah.”
“Come back up.”
I come back up. He kisses me. He kisses me harder now. He reaches over and gets the lube and the condom from the side table. He puts them on the bed next to my hand, the same gesture as last week, the same exact arrangement. I put my hand back between his legs. I get my hand wet. I put my finger against him. I stop.
“Reed.”
“Tell me if…“
“I will.”
“Tell me if anything is…“
“Reed. I will tell you. Go.”
I push my finger in. He inhales. His whole body adjusts, the way a body adjusts to something it has not had before, and I stop, and he says, “Keep going,” and I keep going.
I add a second finger.
He says, “Oh.”
He says it small. He says it the way someone says oh when something’s just been clarified for them. His hand on the sheet tightens. His hips do not move. He is holding still on purpose. He is letting his body learn the thing my hand is doing.
“Talk to me,” I say.
“It’s good.”
“Yeah?”
“It’s, Reed. Yeah. It’s a lot.”
“Too much?”
“No. Just a lot.”
“Okay.”
“Don’t stop.”
“I’m not.”
I do not stop. I keep going. I take my time. I take more time than I had with him last week. Last week his body was ready, tonight his body is learning, and my hand has to be patient. I have done this before, with him, in the version of my life I had before. I add the third. His breath catches. I stop.
“Reed.”
“Just a second.”
