Page 18 of This Thing With Charlie

I swallowed. Breathed.

“Daniel?”

“Yeah. I’m still here.”

“And I would let you put your manhood up my anal passage because I would want you to, because you and me would be all tangled and sweaty and turned on, and yeah, call it whatever you want, but we would be bloody amazing. You would… fuck, Daniel, just the thought of it makes me horny. Kissing you. You fucking into me. I would be riding you and holding you down and… and making you come… I can’t think of anything I would want more than that.”

“Charlie…” I whined.

“I would look after you, Daniel, and I promise it would be worth your while. But I can’t do something with you when your heart’s not in it. It’s not fair. I know I am a fantasy to you, but I’m really not. I’m not that reliable, nice person everyone thinks I am. I don’t keep promises, and I don’t play fair when I should. Relationships frighten me because there is no happily ever after,ever. I could give you some sob story about my parents’ messed-up love life, but yeah. Not a happy ending. Nobody I know has a happy ending. I don’t expect mine to be any different, especially with someone like you because all this, with you, is pissing me off.”

“You are lovely, Charlie.”

“I fuck around. I mess with people. I get bored easily, and I… yeah. I went out on New Year’s Eve and ended up going home with a bloke. We fucked around for hours. It wasn’t good. I can tell you that because all I could think was that I wished he was someone else. I was imagining him being you.”

“I… don’t.” I was drained. Exhausted. I couldn’t take this. Not from him. Not anymore.

“Charlie, where are you?”

“Home?”

“Above the bakery?”

“Yeah.”

“Can I come and see you?”

“Now?”

“Yes. Because…” I had to take another breath. “You are full of shit. You are so fucking full of shit. You fuck people left, right and centre because you are bored, because you have nothing to hold on to. You said it yourself, you need roots. You are not a bad person, and you are not unreliable. And nice? You are fucking nice. You, of all people, should know that. Have you seen yourself? Have you heard what people say about you? They all tell me how lovely you are. Any friend of Charlie’s is a friend of theirs. People pat my back like… like I belong to you, and trust me, you do. You belong to me, and I belong to you, and yeah, now I’m back to being controlling and demanding, and yes, I know. My wife told me every fucking day. I can’t make decisions for other people. I don’t always know right from wrong, and I certainly don’t always know what is right for one person and not right for another. I am not God, and I am not in charge. I am completely out on a limb here with you because you are right. I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know if I want my penis up your arse or if I would freak out if you put yours up in mine. I don’t know because how am I supposed to know?”

“I am definitely buying you a dildo. Go figure it out.”

“I don’t want a dildo!” I shouted to my empty house as Charlie laughed softly in my ear.

“Then what do you want, Daniel?”

“I want to see you. I want to try this… with you. I want to… sleep with you.”

“I don’t want tosleepwith you,Daniel. I want to have sex with you. I want to fuck you and completely destroy you. But if I did? It would destroy me because I can’t take it. I can’t do this anymore.”

“I’m not following you,” I said softly.

“You want to try things with me, but what if you don’t like it? What if this all goes tits up? I’ve had weeks of this. Weeks of all this loving you and hating you and loving the idea of you, and then I remember you shouting at me in the street, and I just… I can’t…”

“I need to see you. Now,” I said, my voice low and gravelly.

“No,” he replied. and I could sense him moving around.

“Please?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what to do with you.”

“Charlie, please,” I said. “Please, please, my darling. I need...” I just needed to not feel like a freak because right now I did. I just wanted to… Fuck him. “Fuck you, Charlie. Just fuck you.”

“Charming. And fuck you too, Daniel.”

“I want to hug you so bad, right now. Do you know how good it feels to hug you? You give the best hugs. So, fuck you.”

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