16. Matthew

16

MATTHEW

I have my music cranked, my welder's mask on, and sparks are flying in the section of my loft where I create my sculptures. This one is my largest ever, standing around twelve-feet tall. It's made of bronze wire I bought and shards of bottles I've found or drained myself. My sculptures aren't abstract—not really. For example, this one looks like a tree, but when you get close enough, you see all the souls that make a tree possible.

While the glass leaves are nearly every color of the rainbow, Valentine says it's a dark piece, thematically. To me, it's a beauty piece. It turned out exactly like my vision. I'm not one of those artists that just throws things out there in order to express a mood. I have plenty of ways to express myself more privately. I design and create with the goal of selling pieces. So they need to be beautiful, interpretable, and unique. This is where a muse comes in.

Muses make me think outside myself. They get me out of my mental ruts, sparking parts of my being that lie dormant. They connect me to Jung's collective consciousness. On my own, I obsess about myself—my needs, my flaws, my talent, my ideas— constantly . I have sketchbooks full of my own mind on paper.

Sculpture is different. It's metaphor. The complication is that all my sculptures are as different from each other as the muse who inspired them. I'm told I don't have a distinct point of view. But I'm working on that. I just need that one breakthrough piece, and maybe it'll be this one.

I checked on Fischer about an hour ago. It sounded like I woke him from a nap, which made a wave of relief so strong wash over me, it'd almost taken out my knees. I've been completely unable to stop obsessing about him since I left earlier. Since I kissed him.

Our mouths weren't open, but my lips had touched his for the first time, and they've been on fire ever since.

I'm expecting Valentine this evening before she has to go to work. I had it in my head while I was trying to sleep last night that I was going to break things off with her, but now I'm not sure. I'm all kinds of conflicted about it, just sort of hoping once I see her, I'll know what to do.

I definitely need to have sex, though. Like some way or another I need to get this tension out of me, and sculpting only does so much. As I'm using all my strength bending the final bronze wire into the shape I need, I have a wad of bubblegum in my mouth, chewing it furiously, keeping my jaw busy to wear it out. I keep getting sideswiped with the visual of Fischer coming last night—all that thick cum I'd wanted to lap up with my tongue.

I've been attracted to him for a long time, but last night that attraction felt like a whole other person inside of me—viscerally real and starving . Damn near chomping at the bit to put my mouth all over him.

And then he'd fucking hurt himself again and knocked me all off balance.

Introducing sex into our friendship would be a mess . Even the idea of it is threatening to make it messy. While I definitely get the vibe Fischer wouldn't push me away if I came on strong, I don't get the impression that we'd be entering into some easy friends with benefits situation, either.

Fuck, I didn't even know until last night he was bi. I'm still not a hundred percent sure that's how he identifies, either. He's only been with women as far as I know—at least since he and I got close. The congressman and whoever else in his past might have just been a phase he grew out of. It explains why he's so comfortable touching me, but just because we're affectionate doesn't mean he wants to fuck. It's too easy for those wires to get crossed in my mind.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is my fully developed brain at twenty-eight . I genuinely have no idea how the rest of my life is going to turn out. I'm no less a slave to my own urges than I was at seventeen, jerking off so often back then, I injured myself. That was fun explaining to the urologist.

He told me I was normal.

Right.

He also told me I was bigger than average, leaving me more prone to injury, which I thought was great at the time, but it gives me a near constant awareness of my dick. That improved in my later teens when I started on ADHD medication, but the pills made my creativity take a nosedive. I took the pills for about a year, then quit. Hyper focus may be a pain in the ass, but it's also my superpower when I'm using it in my workshop.

It's also a double-edged sword. When I hyper focus on someone's body—or a particular body part in general—that gets me into trouble.

I put my finishing touches on the sculpture just after sundown and clean up my workspace, sweeping the debris and glass dust off the floor before hitting the shower. If I do wind up ending things with Valentine, I'll be going out tonight.

She shows up horny, all over me before I can get a word out, and I defer my decision. She smells incredible, and I'm sick of thinking anyway.

Within two minutes of her walking through the door, Valentine is kneeling on the floor between my legs while I sit on the edge of my bed, which is nothing more than a couple of box springs and a king-sized mattress. My cock is in her hand, and she jerks it fast, her hold firm and experienced. She feeds half my length into her mouth and sucks eagerly, blue eyes wide and locked on mine.

I'm struggling to get into it. To get hard .

Since I've never had this problem before, I get way, way in my head about it.

She works on me for several minutes and nothing . The longer I go without so much as a thump in my balls, the more paranoid I get that it's never going to happen, and when hopelessness darkens my thoughts, I start begging.

"Switch places," I urge her.

She flicks her tongue over my slit before sucking my crown to her throat again. It should feel so fucking good—she's perfection at this—but nothing .

"Please, Val, I wanna suck you so bad."

She ignores me again, fisting me at the base and working the rest of my cock with her considerable skill. She doesn't give up until I lock my hand around her wrist. Then she looks up at me with wet lips and shocked eyes, a single crease between them. "What am I doing wrong?"

"It's not you."

"Is sucking me gonna get you hard?" she asks, looking doubtful.

"Maybe?" Normally, I get hard when my underwear is snug. I get hard when I bend metal into a curve. I'm a fucking hard-on machine . Sex is my life fuel . I put it more important than food, just behind water and shelter. I don't know why what she's doing isn't working. Maybe I just need to relax. "Let me make you feel good."

"I do feel good." But she must realize I need more than what she's currently offering.

She stands, her panties in my face, the small bulge behind the satin is fucking mouth-watering . She gives my cheek a caress. "You want me to use my boy voice, too?"

I shake my head. "I want you just like this," I whisper, rubbing my face against the satin as soon as the light turns green. She hums and threads her fingers through my hair, giving the strands a slight tug.

Valentine's penis isn't more than a mouthful, the tip of it barely nudging the back of my throat once I've sucked her to the root. I grab her by the ass and inhale her, taking my time, rolling her taste around on my tongue. All floral and sugar.

" Matthew ," she groans when I touch her hole. "Are you getting hard?"

I'm fascinated. Fixated. But I'm nothing close to hard. I take a second to suck two of my fingers to get them wet before slurping her erection back into my mouth. When I breach her entrance, I get a gasp out of her, and she rocks back and forth, into my mouth and onto my fingers.

She comes best when I treat her like a lady—when I suck her little tits and fuck her missionary-style. When I kiss her deep.

But she goes off like a rocket when I peg her prostate and don't let up. "Fuck—oh my God — fuuuccckk …!"

I drink her cum like nectar, making out with her dick like it's her mouth—passionate and greedy, my oral fixation in high gear. Her legs shake, and her hands yank my hair by the roots as she whines and lets out shocked breaths. "Fuck, stop, I can't… stop …"

I pull away. Tears of frustration well in my eyes, my hand moving from her ass to her hip.

She grips my face and makes me look up at her. I close my eyes, but not before a tear slips out. She swipes it away with a gentle brush of her thumb. "What's wrong?"

"I don't know. I just can't get out of my head." I press a kiss to her belly.

She scrunches her nose and takes a seat on my left thigh. "Kiss me?" she asks.

I cup her breast and touch my lips to hers, my mouth still hungry to move and feel and taste. Since we've come this far, I can't just send her away. She's been more than generous. "Lie down?" I ask her.

"No…" She gives her beautiful head a subtle shake, like she can tell I'm grasping at straws. "It's over isn't it?"

My chin trembles. I'm on the verge of breaking down. This isn't what I want—or, more accurately—this isn't how I want to feel.

She looks over at the tree and smiles softly. "We made an amazing thing. Let's not ruin it."

"Don't be a stranger, okay?" I whisper, burying my face in her neck as she strokes my arm.

"It's him, isn't it? The one that got away?"

I nod.

"I hope he finally realizes what he's missing," she says.

I sigh. "He won't. But I sure as fuck do."

I only know one way to purge this feeling. And I have to purge it. This isn't some run of the mill whim—it's a compulsion I can control about as well as the sun rising.

It's late, but not late enough for the bars to be closed. After another shower, I head to the nearest, seediest gay bar.

I've been to bars worse than this—the kind that literally smell like cum, and I'm afraid to touch anything. This one isn't bad. Here, there are live dancers with good bodies and full doors on the bathroom stalls. The bartender knows my name and my usual order, which probably means something about me I don't want to examine. "Haven't seen you in a while," he says. He's a burly bear with a full beard, a gut, and an Irish accent.

"I've been seeing someone," I tell him. Now that I'm single, I need a man. Just being here, my dick is stirring again.

I lean on the bar and check out tonight's scene, my attention momentarily grabbed by a well-hung dancer with a heavy sac. What I want, though, is one of the men watching the dancers.

I make eye contact with a Black man in a white button-up and slacks. He's slim with close-cropped hair and a sharp, clean-shaven jawline. I stare blatantly, dragging my gaze all over him. He does the same. My tight shirt and low hung cargo pants reveal my navel and a hint of my happy trail. The outfit is meant to signal I'm here to do someone a favor, not that I want one. I'm too tall and broad-shouldered to pass for a twink, so I generally have to let my outfits do the talking.

The man I'm watching maintains eye contact and rises. I finish my drink and follow him into the bathroom stall he's holding open.

I take it from there.

I don't know what I'd do without anti-bacterial mouthwash. The worse it tastes, the better. I carry a small bottle in my pocket along with lube and condoms at all times. It's why I almost always wear cargo pants. For the storage.

Between one and four a.m., I suck a lot of dick, desperate to get one in particular out of my head, but it doesn't work. I still fall asleep at dawn picturing Fischer's. Purge unsuccessful. There's a lesson to be learned from this, but I'm too exhausted to process it.

Maggie comes over Sunday afternoon to see the new piece and take some photos of it.

"I wanna cry, it's so pretty."

"Thanks," I say softly.

She starts snapping photos. Without looking up from her camera, she asks, "Is Fischer okay? Mom said he hit his head."

"He's okay. His cane caught on the coffee table, and he fell, but I don't think it's serious."

"Vaughn wasn't there, was he?"

"No. Jesus."

"What were you two doing?"

"We went out, had a few drinks, nothing major," I say, but it feels like a huge lie.

"And you slept over because you were afraid he had a concussion?"

"I planned to sleep over before that," I tell her. It's funny to me that my closeness with Fischer annoys Mom and Maggie. If I had to bet money, I'd say they're jealous because he probably wouldn't give them the time of day if it weren't for Vaughn and holidays. Meanwhile, I get the full-on pouting version of him because I have to come home from time to time.

"Why?" she asks.

"Because we went to a club and knew we were gonna be out late. Plus he has plenty of room and we like to hang out."

"Hang out, huh?"

I frown at her. "Yeah."

I'm leaning back on my workbench, arms crossed, scowling, when she snaps a photo of me and laughs.

I protest. "I'm not wearing a shirt!"

"Breaking news. Matty's topless. Next up—the sky is blue."

I'd throw something at her, but the closest thing I've got is a seven-pound wire-bender, and she has a point. It's never been documented, but I'm convinced my internal temperature is higher than most people's, which makes working in a polyester suit all night challenging.

"Valentine and I ended things," I tell her because I need to talk to someone about something , even if I can't tell her everything.

"No way." She doesn't sound remotely surprised. "You kept this one around a while."

"This one?"

"You know what I mean."

I do, but I don't like what she's implying. It's not like I'm incapable of forming an attachment to a person. It's that I do it too easily and sometimes it's best to keep things strictly to sex and art. "It ran its course."

She arches a dark brow. "Is there someone else?"

"No," I say.

She lets go of her camera, allowing it to hang from its crossbody strap. "Sorry. Are you okay? I'm not trying to be insensitive."

"I know. Yeah, I'm fine, I'm just…"

"If you don't want to talk about it, that's okay, but I'm always here for you. You know that."

I doubt she wants to hear that I'm having less than brotherly thoughts about Fischer. Intrusive, persistent thoughts I can't shake. It makes me nervous to see him again, and I hate that. I hate not seeing him, period. "I want to focus on this for now." I gesture at the tree.

"Well, it's absolutely gorgeous. Who are you gonna show it to?"

I allow the subject change because I'm getting depressed again. "Once you send me the pictures, I'll send them out to a few people."

"That's vague."

"I have all night to think about it," I remind her.

"You're right. Grab your stuff, and let's get a coffee before you have to go to work. I need to talk about this wedding."