Gale/Randy RPS
NC-17
Why do we both have to be so damn professional? If one of us was a bigger lush,
or a little less moral or a tiny bit sluttier, we’d have fucked a long time
ago. But, we’re not. You’re quiet and intense. I’m a little pretentious and far
too careful. The combination is two guys who do a lot of hanging out and very
little of anything more interesting.
I tried a couple of times (well a million times subtly, a couple of time
pointedly) to tell you how I felt.
At the Christmas party last year I thought I’d die if I didn’t do something
about it. Too much champagne makes you giggly and touchy-feely. Too much
attention from you makes me a little crazy. By the end of the night I had to go
to the bathroom to jerk off and splash water on my face. I left without saying
goodbye to you and I didn’t sleep at all that night.
You showed up at my front door on New Year’s Eve demanding that I go out with
you. Four days without a shower and in pajama pants, I shook my head and shut
the door in your face.
The next week we started filming again. You and I played Chess in my trailer
and you kissed me lightly on the lips when you left to film a scene. Things
were better again after that. But I still felt sick when we were in the same
room.
Then there was the night at your place with Wild Turkey and Trivial Pursuit.
Everyone showed up to match wits and trade quips. We did shots when we got
answers wrong. We told stories about outtakes on the set and gently chided one
another for stupid mistakes. You’d done a million things wrong in our scenes
together, but I didn’t tell those stories.
I remember it was warm that night and you had the windows open. Your skin was
dewy and shined in a way I hadn’t seen except in sex scenes when makeup sprayed
you slick with fake sweat. Your eyes were wide with amusement and you smiled
too easily at our friends. I wondered how it was that two people could go
through life feeling so differently about one another and yet still be friends.
Then I realized that it was only because one of us was suffering miserably. It
wasn’t you.
I was the last one left in your apartment that night and, as you loudly
proclaimed, the only one too fucked up to drive home. You poured us glasses of
wine and we sat on your back porch talking about how strange life is. I
remember when we were both past the point of slurring and nearing incoherency,
you turned to me and said, “We’re an unlikely pair, huh?”
I nodded and shifted my legs to hide my erection. I sighed, leaned back and
closed my eyes so that you couldn’t see inside of me. I let my back rub against
the brick wall behind me and nearly fell asleep sitting straight up. Sometime
later your soft hands took my wine glass away. Then you picked me up off the
ground and carried me into your bedroom. I wasn’t sure if you were going to
dump me into a cold shower or fuck me.
You didn’t do either.
You quietly undressed me and slipped me in under cool sheets. You were so
careful not to wake me, not realizing I hadn’t really passed out. I figured my
labored, erratic breathing would give me away or my heart stammering through my
chest. But, you went on tucking me in and humming quietly to yourself as if it
was something that happened all the time.
I pretended to sleep next to you in your modest double bed. I spent the whole
night pondering what a life with you would be like. I wondered if you always
slept in a t-shirt. I wondered if you always smelled that nice after a night of
drinking. I wondered if your sheets were always that soft, your snoring always
that quiet and your hair always that perfect.
When I slipped my hand into yours hours after you’d fallen asleep, you jerked
slightly but didn’t let go. I fell asleep after the sun came up with my face
dangerously close to your neck.
When I woke up with a pounding headache and a tongue that tasted like three
months of dirty laundry, you weren’t lying beside me.
You were up with a cup of coffee and the front page of the paper, wrapped in a
robe and looking like nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. I had a
fleeting thought that maybe things like this happen to you all the time. Maybe
when you and Scott play poker he passes out on your couch and you make him
breakfast in the morning. Maybe when you and Thea go to foreign films, you
cuddle on the couch after and talk about how you’d like to direct movies one
day. Maybe waking up with me in your bed was nothing extraordinary. But if felt
extraordinary to me.
You offered me a mug and a stool. I took them both without saying a word. You
handed me the Arts and Entertainment section of the paper and I sighed because
it was somehow amazing that you remembered all of the little things I liked.
We sat around for hours without talking. At some point you migrated into the
living room and turned on the television. We watched CNN and then some cooking
show where they were making soufflé. I never liked soufflé, something about the
consistency.
I leaned against you casually and you ran your fingers through the hair at the
base of my neck. My cheek didn’t like the terry cloth of your robe, but I
didn’t move since you didn’t seem to mind me using you as a cushion.
Around lunch time I finally muttered that I should head home. You nodded and
made a joke about me needing to shower. I’m sure you were right.
You graciously walked me to the front door and flipped the lock. When you moved
to pull the door open I got in your way and it pressed us tightly together. You
looked down at me and smiled, seeming so comfortable standing there that close
to me.
As my cheeks blushed red and I started to step away your hands restrained me.
That moment of possession when you looked at me like you might kiss me was
filled with more feeling than any long term relationship I’d ever had.
And then you did. Kiss me that is. Full on the mouth with tongue and all of it.
It was long and slow and you did it like you meant it. Not like it was some
accident that my straight coworker could contribute to a bout of insanity or a
moment of forgetting we weren’t on camera.
You held the back of my head as you gently pushed me into the wall and spread
my legs with your thigh. You explored the roof of my mouth and the back of my
tongue like they were places you’d never been before.
When I slipped my shaking hands into your robe, you moved so that it would fall
open. I looked down at your naked body and when I looked up you were smiling.
I think later, after it was over, you made a joke about how long you’d been
waiting for me. Someday I’ll have to tell you that I was always the one waiting
for you. Always.
End
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