“Please, Matt.” I’ll beg if I have to. “Fuck. Please, I can’t—”
He takes mercy and starts to suck. I grab his head, but he yanks my hands away and pins them to my side. Shit. He and his friend must’ve had a fuck ton of practice. I’m just starting to think that I’m finally going to come when he stops. He wipes his mouth, smile gone but that same look in his eyes, as he unzips and pulls off his own pants and boxers. He sits on top of my chest, hand in my hair, guiding my head forward.
“Is this okay?” he asks.
Fuck, yes. I open my mouth. This is what I’m used to. Making other people feel good. I love this moment, messing around with someone new for the first time, figuring out their body and what they like. It doesn’t take much to figure out Matt, the softer pressure he wants and the spots that have him bucking over me. As much control as Matt had before, he’s lost it all now. He’s squirming, practically crying, even cursing. Never heard so many fucks fly out of golden boy’s mouth before. Unsurprising. I know that I’m good.
He grips my hair tightly, thrusting into me, then pulls back at the last second, right before I think he’s about to come. He repositions himself again, pressing our dicks together and gripping them with a hand. We fall into gasping, moaning, skin sticking together and kissing in between breaths. He comes first, all over my stomach and chest, but I’m close behind.
He collapses on top of me. “Oh, my God.” That’s all he’ll say. He kisses my neck, then rolls off to lie on his back. “Oh, my God. That was great.”
The sex wasn’t technically that special. We did the basics. Not a thousand and one different positions. No tying up and blindfolds and gags, no floggings and candle wax. And yet…It felt a lot more intense than the sex I’ve had in a while. I rub my eyebrow and turn away, lying on my side, my back to him.
Matt puts a hand on my shoulder. I almost shrug him off. “Hey,” he says. “You okay?”
I don’t know. I feel like I’m shutting down. There’re some memories I’d rather not think about. Briggs helps me forget them, the way he slaps me around. Tells me I’m a piece of shit. I want to hear it. Matt’s hand is too gentle, too tender, as he rubs my arm up and down, like he’s trying to comfort me.
“Yeah. I don’t know. Maybe you should go,” I tell him.
His hand stops. “Don’t do this again, Logan.”
“Do what?”
“Treat me like this.” He turns me over and forces me to look at him. “Talk it through, whatever’s bothering you. But I’m not going to be kicked out of your apartment after having sex with you.”
Matt frowns, watching me, waiting for my reaction. But I don’t know what to say.
“What’s going on?” he says. His voice is hoarse. He sounds more concerned now.
I shake my head. “Nothing.”
He pauses for a while. He looks like he’s thinking hard. “I can give you space,” he eventually says, voice low, “if that’s what you need. But something tells me you don’t really want to be alone. Is that true? I’ll leave, if you want me to.”
I don’t even know what I want. I sit up and put my head in my hands, elbows on my knees. “I’m sorry. Yeah. I think I need space.”
A part of me is hoping he’ll act like he did in bed. Tell me that he isn’t leaving, not even if I beg. But he doesn’t speak as he gets up and gathers his clothes. He hesitates at the top of the stairs. “See you at work, Gray.” He turns away again. I hear the door slam shut below, and I fall into my sheets. Shit. Matt’s probably not going to trust me at all after this.
Notes of Amy Tanner (Confidential)
Patient: Logan Gray
Age: 25
Diagnosis: CPTSD
Logan cannot speak about what happened without dissociating. I’m worried I may have pushed him too far this afternoon in asking if there was a link between the way he treated his romantic and sexual partners and the trauma, and he began to dissociate for several minutes.
There has been some progress in speaking openly about difficult memories. In group, he spoke about when he was sixteen years old and publicly came out as bisexual. Logan was under an immense amount of stress from the producers of a movie he had finished filming, and social media was abusive towards him as well.
Logan had no support system in place, as his mother had left the year before. His father returned home from a business trip and gave Logan the silent treatment for several days, which Logan has stated was one of his father’s favorite forms of punishment. When Logan’s father next spoke to him, he told Logan to go onto social media and announce that he had been confused or was only going through a phase, or something to that effect. His father stated that Logan “was only looking for attention by claiming he was bisexual” and that Logan would “lose the production company money.”
When Logan refused, his father implied that Logan “took too much after his slut of a mother,” which in particular implied Logan’s traumas to that point were to blame on Logan himself.
There was a tense moment in the group, when Logan’s roommate, Tom, asked if Logan had ever considered speaking publicly about the abuse he faced, which Logan took as an attack and suggestion that he would have spoken publicly if the abuse had been serious enough, or that, perhaps, the abuse was not so bad if he’d remained silent about it for so many years. Logan reacted angrily and sarcastically, and insulted Tom, digging into Tom’s own wounds that he had shared in group. I was pleased to observe the open communication in the group as they investigated the assumptions made, and was particularly pleased when Logan admitted he made a mistake and apologized.
I will ask Logan next week if he feels comfortable being asked about his trauma, or if he would prefer to speak about what happened at his own pace.
Mattie
I’ve been avoiding speaking to Emma and my mom. I feel guilty, lying to them so much about this fake relationship with Logan—though, now, I’m not even sure if it’s as fake as we think. We’ve had sex. Logan says this doesn’t have to complicate things, but my feelings are already getting tangled. I care about him. I care as another human being, who is worried about someone who is clearly struggling with something, even if he won’t say what. I care about him as a colleague, and as a friend. Pretending to be in love with him has only made things blurrier. I don’t actually love him. I don’t know him well enough to be in love with Logan. But when I force myself to feel emotions for the sake of acting, it can all get mixed up at times, trying to remember what is and isn’t reality.