“What?”
“No, I won’t trust you, because you’re wrong. It’s not thinking about your dick that turns me on, it’s everything else about you.”
“Like what?”
“Your skin, your eyes, how your beard felt against my face the other night. It—I don’t know.” Dante shook his head, mouth dry, throat scratchy—he hadn’t spoken so much in years. “I’m not pretending I understand what it’s like to be you, but I think you’re giving your dick too much credit.”
“It was a good dick,” Sid said softly. “I loved sex, and I don’t feel like myself now I can’t have it.”
“But—” Dante pursed his lips. Who the hell was he to tell Sid how to feel? Or how to mould his thoughts around a disease that had stolen so much from him already?No one. You’re fucking no one.
Sid nudged him. “What were you going to say? It’s all right. You won’t offend me.”
“I’m not worried about offending you.”
“Then what were you going to say?”
“Same as before, just a different version.”
“That I give my dick too much credit?”
“More that you’re saying it wrong, if your theory about positive vibes applies to every part of your life.”
Sid took the joint from Dante’s fingers and stuck it in his mouth. “Explain?”
“You said you can’t have sex, but you can, just not the way you did before.”
“You mean bottoming?”
“I mean thinking you have to be hard for it to be real. Also, you literally just told me about your creepy boner, so... it’s not a never thing, is it?”
“You’re saying it’s unreliable, not broken?”
Dante grinned a little. “I guess so. Sorry, I like to pick holes in illogical things. I’m bastardy like that.”
“Damn you and your logic.”
“Why? Is it easier to write yourself off?”
“It’s easier to not have sex at all than embarrass myself in front of strangers over and over again.”
“Why does it have to be a stranger every time? What if you met yourself a nice dude who understood and it didn’t matter?”
“I don’t do relationships.” Sid stood abruptly and limped to the back door. He yanked it open and lit the joint, blowing smoke into the sky with an angry sigh.
Dante wondered if he should leave, then remembered they were in his house, not Sid’s.
My house. What a fucking trip.
He stayed where he was, watching Sid smoke and trying not to zero in on his strong back and imagine how it would feel against Dante’s chest if he got up and pressed himself against him, winding his arms around his waist and nuzzling his neck.
Dante had never wanted to hug anyone. Affection like that came with love and warmth and genuine relationships that meant something. Not manipulation and games. Not violence and fear.
“You know I would, don’t you?” Sid said suddenly. “If things were different.”
“Would what?”
“Fuck your brains out. Or let you fuck me. I’ve never wanted that from anyone else, but everything about you is different.”