23. PAUL

Everything changed on that Sunday night. That day, we had become lovers, and it had been wonderful – far more wonderful than I had dared hope. When we woke on Monday morning, we woke up as lovers, and I felt transformed.

It felt so natural. It seemed right from the start, such was the immediacy and totality of our sexual connection. There were no nervous conversations about what this meant, no ashamed withdrawals from what had happened. He did not say, “Do you think it’s a mistake?” He held me and kissed me and told me he was happy. It was like a dream.

Walking in to work together, I realized we were now what I had once fantasized about: a couple, leaving our apartment together, united. We moved together in a shared rhythm of steps. We stopped for coffee and a muffin. He held doors for me, ordered at the bar, and would turn and look at me so attentively: “What do you want?” It would have been corny to say: I have what I want.

The next few days passed, and our new connection did not falter. That whole week was wonderful. He was so kind and caring to me, yet I felt his desire for me very strongly. Isn’t that the most perfect combination? One day, you wake up and realize you are living in your dream. It was what Jack had said about living your dream, but I hadn’t known at the time just how true it was.

I had never experienced it before, those moments when you are just falling forward into another person. From the moment we had met, there had been a spark between us, a personal liking, but now we opened ourselves to a much deeper, more magnetic pull. Days were spent immersed in our work, and of course, we revealed nothing of what had happened between us. I understood that it was much too soon. But now we traded little glances across the office, and now and then, Jack would text me and ask if I could slip out for ten minutes.

We would go and sit in Soho Square in the sunshine, with a coffee or maybe an ice cream, and we would talk as lovers do, softly, kindly, with that excitement you hold in your chest, just being with the other person.

Maybe London, with its rich history and vibrant culture, should have beckoned us to explore it further, which had been my plan at the start of the trip. But plans change. More often than not, we found ourselves retreating after the working day to our apartment. We happily wrapped ourselves in our own little world. We wanted to spend that time together, getting to know the other person more deeply.

Evenings were spent on the couch, nestled close together, listening to music on one of our phones or watching the television. Takeout food arrived at our door. Guys delivering cartons of Chinese, Indian, and Korean food appeared briefly at our door, our only human interruption. We laughed and joked, sharing stories from our pasts, doing what new lovers do: trying to find out who the other was as a child, who they were now. In those moments, the outside world ceased to exist. The noise – even the presence – of the city faded.

As nights grew late and the streets outside fell silent, we would retreat to what was now our bedroom, to share our bodies, to seek again and again that physical connection that wanted to bind us, and make us a couple. I felt very strongly that that was what we wanted to be, even if we had not yet used the word.

The touch of his fingertips on my skin or his mouth brushing my neck, finding my lips, sent shivers down my spine. I lay beneath him on the bed, and when we were making love, I felt the force of his body, all six feet four of him, moving into me, taking me over.

And after it was over and we were both spent, I felt his weight falling down on me, him laughing softly, his skin glazed with sweat, putting little kisses on my jaw and shoulder, his cock still inside me.

In that first week, I discovered a happiness that I had long believed was not really due to me. I had hidden from it, in hiding from my sexuality. I had been afraid of sex because of what it might “prove” about me. But now I saw that sex was a way for me to understand more about myself. I had been wrong before. I should not be ashamed of wanting a man to fuck me, to take possession of my body.

That couple I had seen on Washington Square, the big Latino bodybuilder holding the hand of the cute, smaller Asian guy: they had known what I now knew. What it means to be like this is to understand it about yourself: what you are, what you need, and what you might also offer another man.

I suppose you could say we were falling in love or, if not yet quite doing that, deciding to set out on the road together that led in that direction.

***

One day, at the office, I was immersed in work, promising I was not going to sit there all day thinking about Jack. Nonetheless, there was a definite lightness to my step, and I cheerily said good morning to everyone I met.

William said to me, with a careful look on his face, “You’re in an awfully good mood, Paul.”

I shrugged and smiled and went on my way.

In meetings that Jack sat in, our interactions were kept friendly but professional. Neither one of us wanted to give much away. But I could feel a subtle shift in the dynamics between us, some new, shared understanding. His kindness toward me, the fraction longer he looked at me when I spoke, moved into me like a lovely breeze on a summer’s day. It filled me with such good feelings.

A sense of euphoria washed over me now and then, as if he had left me intoxicated by his touch, by his gentleness with me, his passion, and the promise of what might lie ahead. I realized I had to get on and do some work, and I pushed my thoughts away, just allowing the happiness to sit at the fringes of each moment.

In the middle of the afternoon, he came over to my desk.

“Are you okay?” he asked, gazing at me with his warm dark eyes.

“I’m good.”

“Not tired?”

I didn’t understand.

“Tired?”

He leaned forward to whisper.

“From all the exertion.”

He gave a sheepish grin.

“I’m going out with William and Laura tonight.”

“Oh, right,” he said, then giving me a conspiratorial grin. “I will wait for you to come back to me.”

I liked that he said that. He was called away to join a conference call, looking back and grinning as he walked off. I got up to go get a cup of water, but as I did so, William appeared at my side and jokily escorted me into the corridor that led out of the office.

“So, is anything going on with you and Jack?” my new friend asked in a low voice.

I chuckled nervously, William’s sudden scrutiny surprising me.

“What?”

“You two seem very close.”

I wondered what the right thing to say was. Was it that obvious? But William had suspected something from the start, when there was nothing to suspect.

“Oh, the usual work stuff,” I replied casually.

But William wasn’t easily dissuaded.

“You two would make such a great couple, you know?” he ventured.

My laughter caught in my throat at the suggestion.

“What?” I sputtered. “No, that’s not…”

“He looks like he could eat you alive.”

I gave a weird, unconvincing laugh.

“Jack is straight, and so am I.”

William furrowed his brow. I held up a hand to cut off any more speculation. “Sorry, I have to get back to work. I have a super-urgent email to send,” I said. “Nothing is going on, honestly. Jack is straight.”

William’s gaze bore down on me with his sharp, intelligent humor up front.

“But what about you?”

***

One evening, I was alone at the apartment. Jack had gone to some networking event but told me he would not be late back. I told him not to worry, but he shook his head and kissed me. “I would rather be with you,” he said.

It was still light outside when I heard the front door lock release at the touch of the key card outside. I was sitting on the couch, just reading the American news on my phone, and hearing it, I got to my feet.

Quickly, I padded across the room so that I was already waiting for him by the time he pushed the door open. He entered, loosening his tie. As soon as he saw me, he scooped me into his arms and kissed me.

“Mmm, I’ve missed this,” he murmured with his lips still touching mine.

I shook my head playfully.

“Our mouths were connected all night,” I said, and he gave a long kind of purr.

“Can we have a repeat performance, please?”

I laughed as I pulled out of his embrace. He had a bag from an art store with him, and it seemed quite full. I took it from him, looked at it briefly, and then placed it on the little dining table next to the kitchenette.

“Can I make you a coffee?” I asked. “Or do you want some water?”

He stood still with his hands on his hips, his tie loose now, grinning at me.

“Aren’t you gonna look in the bag?”

I turned back to the table.

“What is it?”

“A present,” he said.

I picked up the bag.

“For me, Jack? What is it?”

He took a step toward me and let his hand sweep down my back. It settled on my butt.

“Look inside.”

I did as he told me. Inside was a sketch pad and a set of pencils. They look like quite an expensive brand.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“It’s to encourage you.”

“Encourage me, Jack?”

“To pursue your art.”

It was such a thoughtful gesture. I kissed him and softly said thanks.

Jack playfully suggested that I draw him that same evening. I joked that I would sketch him nude, reclining on the couch.

“I’ll show it around the office in the morning,” I teased, “so everyone will know what is in those pants.”

His eyes widened, and his cheeks reddened. It was very charming that someone like him might blush.

“So, are you going to draw me?” he asked.

“‘Like one of your French girls’?”

He laughed.

“I’m serious.”

Without realizing it, I had immediately laughed off the idea, but he was sincere. He said he would “love it” if I drew him, if he could have a picture of him that I had created.

“What for?” I asked.

He looked at me as if I was being silly.

“Just to have, for the sheer pleasure of having something you created, of course!”

So a little later, I told him to sit on the couch, and I sat beside him but turned toward him with the sketchpad on my knees as he gazed out into the living room.

As I worked, I became lost in the intensity of studying him. I felt Jack’s eyes flick toward me and the pad now and then, and I would tell him, “Don’t move! You’re not allowed to move!” which only made him laugh.

“I’m spoiling everything!” he cried once.

I had looked at his face many times now, just in conversation, or cuddling on that couch, or when he was inside me, staring into my eyes so intensely as the rhythm of our lovemaking grew faster, closer to the moment.

But now as an artist, I saw the still handsomeness of his features beyond him just being the tall, hot guy. I saw how symmetrical and elegant his face was. His cheeks were high and hollow, and a faint line ran down from his ear to his lips like a sharp cut. It was brilliant for sketching with pencil to capture the gradient, the depth of the angle of his cheek.

His lips were full and twitched sensually now and then, and I tried to capture their plumped eroticism. His dark eyes were brown, almost black, but the soft evening light from the window cast a goldish hue on them so that differences in the color of his irises were revealed, and I shaded the pencil in tiger-striped shades of grey.

“I hope you’re doing me justice,” he joked as I continued to draw him.

“You’re not exactly difficult subject matter,” I laughed.

He laughed, too.

“But you have to say that.”

I looked back down at my pad.

“Why do you say that?”

“’Cause I’m your fella,” he said in a funny voice, and I looked up at him. He was smiling, gazing out into the living room. It was just a cute joke between lovers, but my heart was in my mouth.

Finally, I put down my pencil and said that I was done. I turned the pad toward him. Jack’s eyes were filled with wonder.

“Jeez, Paul, you’re really good.” Our eyes met, and he leaned forward to kiss me. “I mean it, you’re really, really good,” he said as he finally took the pad from my hands and gazed at his picture. “I love it,” he said. “I really, really love it.”

And then he put the pad down and moved over the couch to kiss me and fall on top of me, and once again, inevitably, we began making love.