Bad Things (34 page)

“Maybe you’ll let me put it on for you,” Dario said, almost whispering, lips close to Carson’s ear.

Dario opened the condom, and brought it to the tip of Carson’s cock.

“No.”

Dario smiled, nuzzled his hair, kissed his cheek. Held him still and safe in his gaze. “That’s fine. Maybe another time. When and if you’re ready.”

Just say it.

“
No. Just, I want you to…”

“
You want me to make love to you?”

“
Yes.”

Another big, warm. Lit up smile. “Carson, I’d love to.” Fingers combing through his hair. “But you shouldn’t feel nervous about topping me. I know it’s your first time. We all start as virgins. I’ll be patient. Promise.”

“It’s not that.” Carson laughed. “I mean, it’s not just that.”

“
What is it?”

“
I’m not ready to.”

“
But you’re ready for me to make love to you?”

“
Yes. I think so.”

Carson thought Dario would challenge him or contradict him, tell him that topping was the easier thing. But he just said, “All right,” and gave him a soft kiss on his lips. “We’ll go slow. And we’ll stop, if you want to. Any time. Okay?”

“Okay.”

He knew Dario would be gentle and patient. That he’d go slowly. That he’d touch tenderly. But Carson couldn’t believe that on a fundamental level, Dario was doing what Xavier had done. Under Xavier, he’d felt like he was being consumed. Devoured. But under Dario, it felt like being filled, not just in the obvious, physical sense, but like all the parts of him that had been cut away, hollowed out during his life were slowly becoming solid and smooth again as Dario kissed him, touched him. As he carefully entered him, hips cradled between Carson’s thighs, waiting every time Carson stiffened, anxious, nervous. And then, finally, as Dario started to cautiously move inside of him. God, he almost felt whole.

Looking at him, Dario gave him a smile he’d never seen before. A heavy smile. Weighed down by hope.

“
God, you look so, so beautiful right now,” Dario whispered, just barely moving inside of him. “Even more than usual. How is that possible?”

Almost as soon as it was over, Carson could tell something was wrong. All the holes that Dario had filled up started opening up again, until they felt even wider, even more empty than they were before. It scared him. It felt like they were going to keep getting bigger and bigger, until there was more emptiness in him, than anything else.

“
You okay?”

Dario looked concerned. Almost scared. Carson tried to look normal. Tried to smile. “Of course.”

Dario gave him a sweet smile that didn’t camouflage his worry, then gave him a soft kiss. “Your folks stuck you with a lot of baggage. You’ve been carrying it for a long time. Don’t be too hard on yourself if you can’t just set it down and walk away from it in a single week.”

He didn’t want to think about them. He didn’t want to think about all the holes getting wider and deeper, connecting together until he was just a few delicate threads about to dissolve.

“Dario?”

“
Hmmm?”

“
You and Aidan were so…platonic with me last night. And then today, as soon as he’s gone, you bring me up here.”

Boyish grin. “I thought it might be nice like this. This way, I could focus on you a hundred percent. When it’s three of us together, it’s intense, it’s incredible, but everyone’s focus inevitably gets a little diluted.”

“Have you and Aidan done this a lot?”

“
Not a lot, no. We did more in the beginning, when we were first together. We were both struggling with some things, then. These days, we’re more of a closed, self-sustaining system.” Dario laughed. “Fuck. That doesn’t sound very romantic or sexy, does it?”

Carson tried to laugh, too. “No. But the way the two of you are together, is. You’re the most obviously in love couple I’ve ever seen.”

Dario smiled. God, he looked moved. Maybe not so much by what Carson had said, but by the thought of what he and Aidan had. “It’s been really intense, seeing your photographs of us. Seeing what we look like, from outside of myself. I don’t know why, but it makes me feel grateful all over again, that he’s mine. That we’re us.”

His mischievous grin. A playful light in that gentle gaze.

“You know, people don’t expect it, because of who he is, or because they’ve seen videos, and he comes across differently when he’s performing, but Aidan’s really shy.”

This time, Carson’s laugh was genuine. “Yeah. I’ve noticed.”

“He’s not as aggressive as I am. About all this,” Dario said, wrapping Carson in his arms and pulling him against his warm, damp body. Fuck, he felt good. “But he wants you, too. In case it wasn’t obvious.”

Sex was like a drug. Not a nice, friendly drug like marijuana that holds your hand going in and coming out, and cradles you gently through the throes. Sex was a hard, cruel drug. Like alcohol and probably like cocaine and heroin. The drugs that get you addicted to the way they hide your pain from you under momentary pleasure and the illusion of power you don’t really have. And the whole time you’re high on those artificial chemicals, or on the chemicals your brain releases when someone kisses you and looks at you like you’re someone worth loving, while they touch you and kiss your skin and make you come, you’re so lost in the joy and the pleasure and the fake power that isn’t really yours, you don’t notice the vital thing at the center of you—not a soul, nothing to do with God or all that church shit, but you, your self—is being dissolved. As if the booze or the coke or the sex were a catalyst for the life-eroding process that is going on anyway, all the time.

That was the only way Carson could explain it. Why something that felt so, so good, so unbelievably wonderful, like lying between Dario and Aidan as they all kissed each other through their orgasms, or like being kissed and pet and made love to by Dario, could leave him feeling like this. Not just hollow and numb and lonely, the way he’d felt most of his life, but like he could feel himself rotting.

He tried to fake his way through their group dinner, forcing out a little laughter at Aidan’s story about Lana Del Rey at the recording studio. Listening to his ideas about using a short story by Jorge Luis Borges as the nucleus of a new song, and then his sweet recounting of how Dario had systematically brainwashed him over the course of their first six months together, eventually converting him into a lover of literature.

After dinner, he got stoned with them (actually, he got himself good and stoned while Dario and Aidan just got a little lit), hoping the pot would soothe that inescapable sensation of slowly rotting. It worked, more or less, leaving him so vague and soft, inside and out, that there was just a muddy puddle of anxiety where the rotting center of him had been, and he more or less indifferently went to bed with them, letting them put him between them again, and hold him as he fell asleep.

The next morning, though, when Dario came to see if he wanted to come down and make breakfast with them, he said he was busy editing photos, and that he’d grab something later. He hid there in the room they’d given him, in the frozen 2D world of their perfect love for most of the day, until his eyes and his brain were too fatigued to do any more. Then he crept up to the roof, hoping that out in the air, under the sun, he would feel less sick.

Maybe two hours later, Dario came up. All Carson had to do was see his face, and he knew he’d done a shit job of hiding his ridiculous misery. And that Dario thought it was his fault.

Dario pulled a chair up next to Carson’s, and perched on the edge of it, facing him. “I hurt you again,” he said, “after I told you I’d be careful with you.”

“
No you didn’t.”

No relief. Just concern. “Do you want to tell me what’s wrong?”

He loved that about Dario. That faith. That trust. No clinging to the theory he’d been suffering with all day.

Carson had planned on making something up. Anything but confessing this. But looking into Dario’s steady, safe gaze, he suddenly wanted to tell the truth. Part of it, at least.

“There’s something wrong with me.”

Dario smiled. The perfect, warm, gentle opposite of Xavier’s cruel, derisive grin. “You’re hurt. You’ve been hurting for a long time, and pretending you weren’t. But you’re learning to take care of yourself. And even though it feels hard and slow, right now, soon you’ll see that you’re already getting better.”

Carson let go of a sad laugh. “The other day, you wanted to talk about Xavier, and I told you about my dad. Now, you’re talking about my dad, and I…”

Dario waited, then finally said, “We’ll talk about whatever you need to talk about, Carson.”

“God, I’m such a case.”

Dario laughed. It shocked Carson; he would have thought Dario would cut off his hand before he’d laugh at his pain.

“Oh, Carson. Aren’t we all?”

Carson laughed. Hurt and anger erupting from his chest.

“I know,” Dario said, “I look at your photographs of us, and I see what you see. I see how happy Aidan and I are. How lucky we are. But we fought really fucking hard to get here. Both of us. Sometimes I think about the shit Aidan helped me get through, and I can’t believe anyone—much less anyone as…God, as perfect as Aidan—would go down into that hell with me, and help me climb out.”

Dario pulled out of that pained reverie, gave Carson a smile, and stroked his hair.

“We don’t have to talk, if you don’t want to. But don’t be afraid that whatever is hurting you is too dark for me, or that I’m afraid of your pain.”

He said it right then, in the wake of Dario’s promise of safety. Of understanding.

“I can’t stop thinking about him.”

Dario didn’t say anything, but the way he gave him a sympathetic smile, Carson had the idea he knew exactly who he meant.

“You and Aidan are so…God, I mean, I never knew, never even hoped I could feel so good. Not just physically…I didn’t know I could be happy. Not like this. Not like I am when we’re…Aidan and you and me.”

Dario looked sad, but his gaze was steady.

“I sure as fuck never felt happy with Xavier. Not safe. Not good. Here I am with you and Aidan, safe and sometimes so fucking happy, but I can’t stop thinking about him. It’s like he didn’t just…”

He almost wanted to say it. Punish Xavier by telling Dario he’d held him hostage. Sexually assaulted him.

But all he said was, “It’s like he brainwashed me. I hate that I keep thinking about him. But I can’t stop.”

“
What are you thinking about him?” Dario asked, as if he didn’t know.

All Carson did was blush.

Dario gave him an understanding smile. “What you mean is, you have feelings for him.”

Yes. Absolutely. Strong fucking feelings. Like rage. Fear. Hate.

“Do you love him?” Dario asked, his voice quiet. Cautious.

“
No, I don’t love him,” Carson hissed back.

Fuck, what was that look on Dario’s face? Pity? Laughter?

“But you miss him.”

“
Yeah. I miss him. I miss feeling scared and humiliated and small and helpless.” Fuck, even he didn’t know if that was sarcasm or not.

“
Maybe. Maybe that’s part of your attraction to Xavier.”

“
What? My dad was an abusive asshole, so now I have some sick need to be with a man who’ll abuse me?”

“
How did Xavier abuse you?”

No. No way. He couldn’t tell anyone. And for fucking sure he wasn’t going to tell Dario, who very obviously loved Xavier. Either as a friend, or as something else. “You and Xavier are friends.”

“Yes. In some ways, very close friends.”

“
You like each other. Care for each other.”

A suppressed, thoughtful smile. “Yes.”

“And he still scares you?”

“
Sometimes, yes.”

“
Has he hurt you?”

“
Yes. But always when that was what I needed.”

What the fuck did that mean?

“Well,” Carson said, “Xavier doesn’t care for me. He doesn’t like me. We’re not friends. I don’t know what he does to the men he’s friends with and cares about, but maybe you have some idea what he does to someone he thinks is a terrible person.”

Dario’s face went white. So white, it scared Carson, because he’d never seen anyone’s face look like that, before.

“I can’t believe he ever thought you were a terrible person,” Dario said. His voice was low, but he sounded like he was begging. Or maybe praying. “Carson?” Dario’s gentle, soul-baring gaze reversed focus and he searched Carson’s eyes. “Xavier didn’t…he didn’t really think you were one of them, did he?”

It felt like he was saying it just to save Dario from whatever hell his imagination had dragged him into, but once he said it, he believed it. “No. I think he always knew I wasn’t really part of it.”