Page 27 of After His Eulogy
He pulls back. Not far. His mouth is an inch from mine. He says, “Wait.”
“Okay.”
“I want to ask you something first.”
His thumb is moving on the side of my neck without him deciding to. I don’t say anything.
“Okay.”
“I want to know,” he stops. He starts again. “When you and I, before. We did it both ways. We did not have a default. Some weeks were one way, some weeks were the other way, and we did not negotiate it. It just was.”
“Yes.”
“I am asking because tonight is not before. Tonight is. I am asking because I want to know what you want tonight. I do not want to assume. I want to know if there is a way you have been thinking about it. The last two years.”
I look at him. I think about the question. I haven’t let myself think about it. Haven’t let myself think about any version of him for two years. The specifics are now a question he’s asking me in his entryway at eight at night with his hand still on the side of my neck.
“Have you,” I say. “Been thinking about it.”
“Yes.”
“How.”
“Reed.”
“Tell me.”
He looks at me.
“I want you to fuck me tonight,” he says.
The sentence goes through me. I do not move. I do not move for what is probably a second and what feels like longer. He is looking at me and he is letting me have the second.
“You sure,” I say.
“Yes.”
“Because…“
“Because I’ve spent two years thinking you were dead, and the last two months figuring out you’re not, and this is the thing I’ve decided I want tonight. The decision isn’t abstract. I’ve thought about it for a week.”
“A week.”
“Since the stairwell.”
“Okay.”
“You can say no.”
“I’m not saying no.”
“Okay.”
I take a breath. I take it because I am about to say a thing I have been thinking for a month and have not said. I want to be the person who says it on purpose.
“Griffin. You have been the one deciding things. The whole time. Since the sidewalk. You have been the one telling me what is going to happen. I want you to do what you want.”
He looks at me.
