Page 83 of After His Eulogy
“Hi.”
We don’t say anything else for a minute. The saying-out-loud is the version we let ourselves do sometimes; tonight we’re doing it.
He goes down my body. The same path, the same pauses, his mouth lingering on the spot under my collarbone. He gets to the tattoo and puts his mouth on it. He doesn’t say Reece again. His lips are warm on my skin and I close my eyes. His hand goes between my legs. He’s unhurried. I’m hard against his palm and he’s taking his time, using the hand he’s been using for ten years. I make a sound.
“Yeah,” he says.
He’s been sayingyeahduring sex since the first time. He’s still saying it.
“Adam — come up here.”
“Yeah.”
He comes up. He kisses me. His hand stays on me. His other hand goes to my face.
“What do you want tonight,” he says.
“You inside me.”
“Okay.”
“Slow. Like you have time.”
“I have time.”
“I know.”
He kisses me. He gets the lube from the drawer. The lube has been in the drawer in the new house for six weeks now, the same way it was in his apartment in November and mine in February and a hotel-room drawer in March on the night before we got on the plane. The drawer with lube in it, in a new house, is its own thing.
He gets the condom. We don’t always use one. We had a conversation in March, after the program had panels run, and agreed we didn’t have to. But sometimes I want it andsometimes he does and we’ve stopped making it a referendum. Tonight we use one. He puts it on. He gets the lube. He’s giving the thing the time it asks for.
He moves between my legs.
“Tomas.”
“Yes.”
“Reece.”
“Reece.”
He pushes in. Slow. Without ceremony, because it’s something we do now. He fills me up and stops with his forehead against mine.
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
“Move.”
“You move.”
“Reece.”
“Yeah.”
“I want to look at you for a second.”
I look at him. His eyes are wet from nothing — he hasn’t been crying, he isn’t crying, his eyes are doing what eyes do when a person is feeling more than the face can hold. He’s letting them. He’s letting me see.
