Page 54 of All That Remains
For him, this was likely the rekindling offriendship. Catching up with an old mate. Bro shit. Nothing more. For me, it was different. To be fair, I didn't think of it as romantic either. Even I wasn't that pathetic. Still, it felt like something far more profound thanfriendship.
After I’d gotten home from my meeting with Naomi, I keyed up Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of The Moon," Rome’s favorite‘get stoned’album, and took all my clothes off, down to my briefs. I was sticky andwarm. I stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows, watching a night-swept Laurel Canyon and dense mists.
The opening percussion of "Speak to Me"spoke to me in a language only my soul could discern. One that shied away from all manner of cognition. It scored the murky landscape like a sequence out of a macabre film—reinforcing the plummet in my core as I debated texting him again.
These thoughts are unsound, I told myself. Tomorrow, we would meet. Tonight, I stood on the cusp of madness. A psychosis I’d willingly court in pursuit of him—in pursuit of all we'd discovered in 2011 and had eluded our entire adulthood. The only upside to our estrangement lay in acquainting myself with him all over again. All things new.
Nervy things took over, like the fleet of butterflies ripping their way out of my lungs. The same hunger, the same ardency as when we’d first touched. Or when I’d first spread him open. As Naomi prescribed, it was necessary that I let these thoughts play out, work through them and create an opportunity to move on. It was obsessive, but necessary. And it was with this goal in mind that I indulged, diving in head-first.
I sat at the writers' desk, staring at the dimples in the antique wood, tracing my fingertip along the discolorations. After searching in vain for a nearby pen, I jumped up again and grabbed my phone, also retrieving what I'd purchased whenJohn stopped by the 7-11 on the way home. A pack of Marlboro Golds.Hisbrand.
Opening the pack, I got the distinct smell of unburnt tobacco. I took out one cylinder and rolled it back and forth between my forefinger and thumb, delighting in the simple sensation. I'd seen him do it a million times, and now understood the mindless comfort to be derived from it. There was no end to the number of uses for cigarettes, it seemed. It hadn't occurred to me to buy a lighter, so I forfeited the idea ofsmoking. Instead, I set it behind my ear, like he might do. Then I scrolled to the audio recorder on my phone and hit record.
"Love is not a laughing matter…" I paused the recording and took a breath, then hit play again. "Uh...no, love is not a laughing matter. And as I've come to discover the last few years...love is not my strong suit." I paused to think. "My mum would call me a liar for saying that…but she doesn't know how awful I am at it. She doesn't knowthe hell I've been through. No one does. Not another living soul. Least of allhim. She, uh, likes to think I'm good at everything, y'know?Mum shit. Or maybe she knows I'm no good at anything and is too polite to say?"
I paused, chewing my top lip.
"And, uh...she still has no idea that the time I spent in one of the biggest rock bands in the world, was blighted by an affair with its most mysterious member."
I grimaced at my own stupidity, then laughed. It rang wildly through the room.
“Am I crazy?” was the last thing I uttered into the recording.
The opening instrumental to "Breathe" played softly in the background. I turned it down to a whisper, but still it haunted my process. It overtook the house and set me on paths in my mind I hadn't tread since 2015. I remembered the moor again. There was the sound of static. Most days I’d drive and wind up there. Now I parked and got out of the car and stood in the doorjamb with one arm on the hot roof. The dash chimed because I’d left the keys in the ignition.
I got there at dusk, just after a rainy golden hour. No one knew where I was because I didn't know myself. I only knew he was there. Since I’d forgotten to turn the radio down, the static bled outside the windows and muddled my thoughts before they were known to me. I stared out over the radiant horizon in search of him, a minuscule figure lost to the ancient English wilderness. He was angry with me and took off walking in the middle of nowhere, forsaking theAirbnbwe’d shared in the Lake District. I thought I’d lost him for good then. That there was no way he'd come home to me after this. Now each time I revisited that place, a new element emerged from the memory. And still, I could never quite locate him.
The ringing at the beginning of Pink Floyd's "Time" drew me back to reality. In truth, I was sat there at an empty desk, in nothing but my briefs, with an unlit cigarette tucked behind my ear. What the fuck was I doing? When I left to climb in bed, the cigarettes lay crushed; the tobacco ripped from the cylinders and left in a haphazard pile. With one swift breeze, it’d all go flying across the room, landing in a light litter on the floor.
***
As I lay beneath the sheets, after hanging up with Grimmy who I'd spoken to for hours, I listened to the Thrills "Not For All The Love In The World." Then "Flowers In The Window" by Travis. I ignored a call from John. I texted a few people whose calls I hadn’t returned during the day. I made a to-do list for the following morning. This was my nightly routine of late, and if I deviated from it in the slightest, I became disoriented. "Can't Help Falling in Love" would play soon, and then a whole host of other Elvis classics. My grandad’s music. Sinatra's "Moon River"always keyed up just as I was drifting to sleep, located deep in my playlist. A song to dream to.
I dozed earlier than usual. Somehow, I was back in his car from last night. Inhaling his cologne, smelling the liquor on his breath, absorbing all he'd become in our estrangement. Then he was on top of me, settling onto my lap with his delicious weight. Pulling at my clothes, like old times.
There in bed, I spread my legs and welcomed him in. I snaked a hand beneath the sheet and grabbed a hold of myself, squeezing until I came to life. I hardened quickly beneath the insistent pressure of my hand. Its searching urgency. It washishandin my mind. It didn't take long before I was engorged and tingling—the rest of my body squirming with impatience.
I arched my back, then freed myself from the briefs, pushing them down beneath my knees and kicking them away. It was a major relief. The cool sheet teased my flesh from head to toe, protruding over my erection until I pushed it aside. He tugged me with expert strokes, a knowing flick of the wrist.
In reality, I did all the work. I alternated the angle of my hand so that it occasionally felt like another’s. I cupped my balls, then concentrated the grasp of my other hand around the head of my cock, twisting until I couldn't stand it anymore. I reached into my nightstand, then blindly drizzled lube all over. I envisioned the shape of his lips—moist and pink against my flesh. I felt the heat of his cavernous mouth, nearly swallowing me whole. The brush of his tongue. Tortuously soft. Elusive. Flicking the tip before he swallowed me again.
The vibration of his moans rippled down my shaft. I slipped in and out of his mouth, coated in drool, helping him along with a slight undulation of the hips. His mouth closing around me, dragging up and down my length in a measured caress was nothing short ofNirvana. The apex of human feeling.Where the psychological met the physical in a hurricane ofinsufferablepleasure.
I moaned abominably. My free hand caressing the inside of my thigh, stoking up my belly and pulling at my nipples like he would. They were rock-hard and tender, begging to be sucked; begging to be drawn into his mouth and teased with his drunken tongue.
I came with a shuddering exclamation, which shortly dissolved into curses and sobs of frustration. I spiraled hard when I opened my eyes and realized he wasn't there. He was home in bed, probably withher. And as for me, I lay there like some sick fuck, hot cum all over my stomach and the back of my hand. Panting and sweating like an animal.
Just when I began to feel frigid, I hopped in the shower and allowed the freezing water to douse me, pretending the coldness was not locked inside. That it wouldn't be present the moment I left the bathroom. Water ran in icy rivets over my head and shoulders, dragging my hair down my face and helping me forget.
20
Noon arrived the following day, and I pulled over on a road to read his latest message. There was a change of plans. He’d arrived early to the place he'd chosen for discretion but was recognized by the staff. He grabbed the coffee and now wanted to meet at his place to ensure privacy. Moments later, he sent over the lower Beverly Hills Post Office address and I grew sick.
In many ways, venturing into someone else's home tended to result in a commentary on your own with the endless comparisons. I prepared myself for the sights, smells, and inner workings of an alien domain. What if his friends are there?Normally that wouldn't present an issue, since I was highly sociable, but something about the idea of meetingfriends from his new life daunted me. Worse, what ifshewas there? What if he wanted us to meet? What if I sawherthings strewn about, marking her territory?
I plugged the address into my GPS and allowed the humorless voice to guide me. He was technically over twenty minutes away, but it took me a mere fifteen to reach him, flooring it whenever possible. It was a quiet, wooded street with two empty lanes. The properties were steep and many of them hedged about so deeply it was difficult to tell where one ended and the other began. Rome's place was just so, lost among shadow and hillsides and great neighboring facades.
Located at the end of a private drive off the main street—the approaches were locked behind a tall white gate. If it weren't forthe navigation system, I would’ve missed it nine times out of ten. I imagined he had one hell of a time finding it at night himself. Turning near a post that displayed the address, I stopped at the intercom.
