40. Matthew

40

MATTHEW

F or the first time in my life, waking up without someone next to me in bed doesn't make me annoyed, or anxious, or sad. It makes me physically ill. I sink my face into the pillow where Fischer's head was when I fucked him, and I smell what's left of him there. I nearly choke on the scent, fighting back tears and my own gag reflex.

I don't need a psychology degree to know this isn't normal. To know that resenting his job because it takes him away from me isn't healthy thinking. To understand that this is truly a different thing than what I've felt for any other lover in the past. He's not only a muse, but he's my muse. He's foundational. He's inside me and he drives me, and this has been true from the moment he reached for my hand in bed that first time. I'm irrevocably obsessed.

That night changed my life, changed me in so many ways—ways that I could have described in detail two months ago and ways I'm only just now discovering.

He ruined me. No one in the world—not Valentine or Elodie or any number of the muses I've used and debauched over the intervening years—could have ever replaced what I believed I lost when he returned to his job overseas—my soulmate .

I hesitate to tell him this because how I feel is too toxic and corrosive to be love. Here in his bed, surrounded with his scent, there's a moment where I need to take a deep breath to keep from letting the bile come up, and in the next moment, I'm scrambling from the bed, then hunching over the toilet when it inevitably does. I sink to the floor, my bare back against the cold, tile bathroom wall, my arm across my cramping stomach, wishing I'd had the foresight to bring my phone with me. I need to hear his voice. See his face. Something.

What the fuck is wrong with me? Yesterday was good . This morning was perfect .

I get that I'm a sensitive person—I always have been, but this is ridiculous. To think I recently went nearly three weeks without any meaningful contact with him. I can't even remember how I did that. I'm thoroughly in love and probably something worse than that, too. I don't remember anyone saying love would hurt like this. Maggie's in love with Stuart, and she's all smiles and laughs with him. Why the hell can't I be like that with Fischer? Is there something wrong with me? With us? There has to be, right?

Normally, this time of day after an overnight shift, I would try to go back to sleep, but I feel like I've been shot up with adrenaline. I can't stop thinking about him—how to be with him. How to arrange the other parts of my life around him.

I tend to get obsessed easily, but this is more. My sex drive is off the charts. But my heart is a hot fucking mess. What any of this means is a mystery to me, and where it goes from here is anyone's guess, but I'll fight for him. I don't see it coming down to a fight, though. What I can picture is begging. Pathetic, desperate begging to please keep me in his life—keep me close.

As a child I remember Fischer distinctly, and I could always read his mood on the rare occasions he came around the house. He carried with him a distinct sense of "otherness" as though he wasn't one of us, would never be, and didn't want to be. He seemed conflicted. Always distant. Removed. He acted more like a reluctant friend of the family than a part of it. I didn't like him back then. He fascinated me, but I was more in the camp of— if you don't want to be with us, just go, dude .

So I got how hard it had to have been to need us when he was so severely injured. As a single man in his early thirties having to rely on a family he all but shunned had to have been humbling. But he'd opened the door, and I'd walked in of my own free will, determined to wedge the chip off his shoulder.

So now, we've crossed another line—we're fucking. A lot. But maybe we've been casually dating off and on without realizing that's what we were doing—or maybe realizing, but not acknowledging, and one of the reasons for that is why I'm so conflicted now.

I'm not sure people would understand. I don't even want to consider what our family would say. It's possible they could recognize the situation for what it is—we're not blood related. We didn't grow up together. We got close when we were both well above the age of consent. But he's also thirteen years older than I am. And I don't know what that looks like to someone on the outside, whether they know us well or not.

But now that I have him in whatever tenuous way I do, I'm not capable of letting go. He'd have to rip out my heart and watch me bleed out at his feet to get me out of his life. And that scares me. No one should need anyone this much. So why do I ?

After one more round of nausea passes without further incident, I pull myself up by the vanity counter, rinse my mouth out, wash my face, and brush my teeth.

I could collapse again. Sleep the rest of the day. Suffocate myself in his pillow, holding my breath until he comes back to me so I can tell him he's the one. He's always been the one. That maybe the reason I was born was for him .

So he could have one thing that was all his—that he would never have to share or doubt.

At ten-thirty, Fischer calls me.

"You okay?" I ask instead of hello.

"Barely," he admits.

"Mm…you still at work?"

"Yeah."

"Why do you have to stay so late? I had your show on, it ended a while ago."

"You were watching?" He sounds surprised.

"On mute."

"Why watch then?"

I run a hand through my hair and lean back in my chair. "‘Cause you're hot in a suit."

"Are you busy?" he asks.

"I'm expecting two more dogs in the next few minutes, but most of them have been out to do their business already. Answer my question. Why don't you get to leave after the show?"

"There's actually more to this job than being hot and articulate in a suit, you know?"

"No. I don't. You should tell me more about it sometime."

"Like when?"

"Whenever you want to," I say. "You can tell me all about what it's like to be a newsman while I warm your cock in my mouth. How's that sound?"

He clears his throat. "Would you be paying attention?"

"Would you be able to talk?" I counter.

"If this is what you're always like?—"

"It's not," I say quickly.

"No?"

The familiar pinging noise sounds behind me. "That's the elevator. I have to get off the phone, but Fischer?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm looking forward to seeing you. Get home safe."

Forty minutes later, I'm holding open the door for 408 and her Great Dane. I glance out at the street to find Fischer emerging from a black car. Our eyes meet.

The look on his face transforms into something so single-minded and heated I could masturbate to a picture of it. The cane forces him to keep his gait casually paced, and I wait, trying to be patient, because for this one moment, the lobby is empty, and I just want to smell him— something. Anything.

I reach for his bag , a service I've never offered before, and he hands it over to me. We stare at each other as he enters the lobby, and I notice 801 and his dog waiting for the elevator in the vestibule just beyond the lobby.

"Did anything come for me today?" Fischer asks.

I look at him, confused.

His cheeks flush—exactly the way they do when I'm sucking his cock. "Like a package?" he adds.

Oh. Okay, I get it. "Not that I'm aware of. Yet."

"Would you mind double checking? I can wait."

"Of course." I grab a dog treat, toss it to Daisy the black Schnauzer, who catches it in our well-practiced routine, and turn the corner into the mail room just as the elevator arrives. Fischer follows at a distance behind me. Once the elevator shuts, he whispers, "Come here, hurry."

I shake my head. "Someone will see."

"Like I said, hurry up."

I'm only a few feet away, so I close the distance quick, pulling him into a hug and spinning him around so if anyone does happen to come in, I'll be blocking him from view. It's a romantic move, and I hear him sigh like he thinks so, too. He buries his face in my neck and inhales deeply, smelling the soap he bathed me in this morning. I groan softly at the memory. Our cocks stiffen against each other as I murmur into his ear, "You feel so fucking good."

"Not as good as you."

"If I could get inside you right now, I'd come in five seconds."

"Dare you," he whispers, clutching my shoulder blades as his cane clatters to the floor.

Fuck. The cane.

We both realize it's recognizable at the same moment and pull apart. I bend to pick it up and step away from him. He's got a bulge in his pants I wish I could get on my knees for. "You need to go cool off," I say.

"I've been trying to cool off all day."

I hand him his cane, checking out my crotch where I've got my own bulge showing off. He rubs his forehead, unable to take his eyes off it. "Jesus. I fucking can't with you."

"That's not what you said this morning." My tone is light, but I don't like the distance, and I don't like the word "can't."

The elevator door opens behind me, and I grab a random stack of mail, handing it to him. I've still got his messenger bag on my shoulder.

He takes the mail and scowls down at it, stalling.

"Fischer!" a voice rings out sharply, and we both stiffen. Ravenna .

"Jesus," I hear him mutter under his breath as he walks past me to get between her and where I'm standing.

"I'm sorry about last night—" she starts, but he holds up his hand to stop her.

I feel sick. "Excuse me," I say, stepping around them to catch the elevator door before it closes. As I do, I catch a glimpse of Raven.

She looks good. Like Britney during the good years. Her messy bun makes her look taller than she is, and—I think this is where I catch the Britney reference—in a gray velvet cropped sweatsuit with hip-hugger pants straight from the early aughts, her tits draw the male gaze. I give her a nod while Fischer covers his erection with the mail I gave him.

"Am I not allowed to speak to you anymore?" she asks him with a light laugh.

"I've had a long day," he tells her curtly, stepping onto the elevator. I hand him his bag and step between him and Ravenna, looking down at her as I cross my hands over my own bulge.

"He's so stubborn," she says to me.

"Headed out?" I ask. "It's a nice night."

"Yeah, I…" She squints up at me. "Why was he in the mailroom?"

"He had mail," I say.

"Uh-huh. He looked kind of—I don't know. Flustered or something."

I shrug.

"Are you okay?" she presses.

"Of course. Can I help you with anything?"

"No. I'm good. Saying hi."

I walk her to the door, wishing I never had to see her face again.