“You think this is funny?” David picked up the baby and held the boy in his arms. He wouldn’t even look up at Raja. “This is the worst. I think you should go.”
Raja frowned, bound to the floor by a cool sensation in his legs. His erection was long gone just like Bell’s cries. “No.”
“Why not? I’m clearly useless. The baby could call out for me at any moment, and I came in my pants in five fuckin— gah!” He was only going redder, and funnily enough, as he said those angry words, he kept stroking the baby’s back gently as the little boy closed his eyes.
“Because you don’t pull me through the trouble of getting here, cocktease me, and then show me the door,” said Raja with a frown. He wasn’t sure whether he was angry at the baby or at David for trying to push him away over this silly thing. He supposed he couldn’t be angry at a baby that fell asleep so quickly.
“I’m sorry, I just don’t know if this is the right thing to do. What if Bell crying was a sign?” David put the baby back into its crib and finally looked up at Raja. “My mom called today, and I think I might be gay, like, very gay. And you feel so good. I could just stay in bed with you forever, but people say heroin feels fantastic, and that that doesn’t mean it’s good for you. Maybe I really do need to rethink this.”
Raja stepped back at the slap in the face that was David’s words. He crossed his arms on his chest, trying to keep his cool. He refused to be hurt by an eighteen-year-old kid. “Did you just compare me to heroin? What the fuck is up with that?”
David walked past him and pulled Raja out of the baby’s room by a loop in his belt. “How do I know if what I’m doing is right?” He looked up at Raja in the corridor, as if Raja had all the answers. “My mom doesn’t want me to even associate with ‘the gays’, and here I am, fantasizing about your dick inside me. Maybe something’s wrong with me, and I can still fix it.”
Raja pushed David’s hand away, suddenly uncomfortable with his touch. This was mad. He hadn’t come here for this. He came here to have some fun and show David what sex was all about, not to listen to abuse and self-abuse. “No you can’t. There’s something wrong with you if you agree with her.”
David sniffed, and now Raja could confirm David’s previous statement. This was a disaster. “I don’t agree. I’ve met some really nice gay people. But maybe it’s not my calling at all. Maybe if I stop now, it won’t progress,” he said as if being gay was some disease that would develop over time and shorten his life.
Raja grabbed his arm and pushed him against the wall. “This isn’t fucking cancer! I can’t believe you’d say this of yourself, of me, of all the people you say you met and like!” He took a deep breath, trying to curb the anger firing up inside him. “Are you saying there’s something wrong with me too? Is that what it’s all about?”
And on top of that, despite David inviting Raja into his bed, the guy still wore that stupid purity ring on his finger. Un-fucking-believable.
David looked away from Raja, and his exhale was a loud tremble. “Did you tell me not to try conversion therapy because you wanted to have sex with me?” The whispered question was like yet another slap in the face.
Raja’s throat clenched, and he wheezed his next breath, looking away from David. “No. Of course not. That’s what you think of me?” he growled and pushed hard against David’s chest, fuming. Now it was he who wanted to leave the house. “You shouldn’t have invited me then. You smile like a fucking angel, you flirt with me, pretend to be all sweet, but that’s what you really think!”
David gasped and grabbed Raja’s hand. “I’m just trying to sort things out in my head. Why did you want to stop me from going to a therapy camp?” He smiled in the sweetest, gentlest way, and it was one of the scariest things Raja’s ever seen in his life. “Maybe we could try it together?”
Raja shook David’s hand off as if it burned him. “Stop smiling. You’re freaking me out. I’m never ever trying to change who I am!”
David’s face saddened, like on command, and he slouched against the wall. “Do you never wish you were different? Wouldn’t it have been easier for you? With all your biker friends?”
Raja exhaled, looking toward the baby’s room and suddenly wishing for Bell to start crying again. He hadn’t expected this conversation. He never talked to people about his past. He’d left it behind and never looked back, and now David was just delving his smooth hands into Raja’s chest and pulling all this shit out.
“You don’t understand. It’s not something you can unlearn. It’s who you are. You’re not gonna stop liking men. Ever. Do you understand this? They are gonna hurt you there, if you go,” he whispered, slowly closing his hand on David’s shoulder.
The ghost of touch was enough for David to push away from the wall. He wrapped his arms around Raja tightly and wouldn’t let go, hot cheek on Raja’s chest and his whole body trembling. He didn’t say a word but his breathing was ragged.
Raja’s back thudded against the wall, and he slid all the way to the floor, taking David with him. He didn’t even know when his arms closed around the shivering body so hard he needed to loosen his grip when the tension in his muscles made his limbs ache. “Even if you go into one of the... more legit... no... less shady places, they’re just gonna make you hate yourself. You can’t win against those people when they think they’re hurting you for your own good. Like doctors did in the past when they bled ill people because they didn’t know any better,” mumbled Raja in the end.
David curled up in Raja’s lap, and the strange thing was that Raja could barely remember hugging someone this way. Not while making out, not while fucking, but just being close, talking, and… only now he noticed that David was crying. Latching on to Raja, and wetting Raja’s T-shirt with his tears.
“What did they do to you?” David asked between one sob and another.
Raja sighed and slowly brushed his thumb across David’s cheek, wiping away a tear. He didn’t know how to deal with this kind of stuff, but he didn’t want to run from it either. He wanted to convince David not to make a horrific mistake.
“My mom... she came home early and found me with my boyfriend. She and Dad talked, and less than a week later, I was shipped off to this camp in the desert... It was like they didn’t want anything to do with me if I’m not what they wanted me to be,” he whispered, surprised that even now, the pain he felt over ten years ago hurt just as much. “The air was so dry there, we had those mindless chores... like transporting wood and rocks from one place to another, and then we had gymnastics and all kinds of mumbo jumbo therapy.”
David leaned up and gave Raja’s cheek a tender kiss. “And that was supposed to help with the… attraction?”
Raja was usually the last person on the planet to open up about his past, but for the first time in years, the person he was talking to truly wanted to listen. Not just because Raja was a good fuck and they had to pass the time somehow. It felt as if every word from Raja’s lips would be cherished. And at the end of the day, David was the one person who wasn’t asking out of curiosity. He needed to hear what Raja had to say. With him, showing a bit of vulnerability would not make Raja any less of a man.
“Yeah,” whispered Raja, gently petting David’s face, shaken by the flood of memories that emerged out of the depths of his brain where Raja had locked them away so long ago. “We were on a strict diet, and we had baths in icy water, group therapy where everyone was expected to basically bash themselves and apologize for how they felt.” Raja’s eyes stung just remembering it. “I really missed my boyfriend, but I never heard from him again. And I... didn’t want to cheapen anything that happened between us. I wouldn’t do it, so the therapists felt I was a difficult case. That’s what they called me.”
David pulled away slightly to look into Raja’s eyes, and Raja didn’t even have to ask to know that anything he’d say would stay between them. “That does sound horrible.” He slipped his fingers into Raja’s beard, and the tender caress released some of the tensio
n in Raja’s body.
He exhaled and squeezed his fists, watching David. “They would do aversion therapy, so they made us nauseated with drugs or used electroshocks while showing us sexy pictures of guys. I have no idea how long those sessions lasted, but it felt like ages. I know some of the guys were faking it so that it would stop eventually, but I wouldn’t do it. I couldn’t. And then, they won, you know. They made me cry when in this whole set of hot pictures was m-my boyfriend. And I just couldn’t help myself. I missed him so much. It was... so cruel.”
David’s lips parted and he sobbed with the tears Raja couldn’t shed anymore. “I’m so sorry. That’s not right…” He petted Raja’s beard in the same soothing motion and wouldn’t take his eyes off him.
Raja wasn’t even sure how to pinpoint what he was feeling. David’s gaze wasn’t about horny teenage lust like it had been before. He was engaged and searching for the true person behind Raja’s cocky facade. And Raja didn’t want to hide behind it either.
“It made me so angry,” whispered Raja after a few seconds he needed to steady his voice, but there was a tension inside him that he couldn’t even describe. “I tried to run, but they caught me. I was in solitary first, and then the treatments became even more intense. I just wanted it to end. I was so tired. It was almost as if they were waiting for my weakest moment, and one night, instead of having me sleep in the room with everyone else, they locked me up in this bedroom. And then a female therapist came over, and she acted like this good cop, you know. She ran me a bath, and she gave me some nice food. She was pretending she sneaked in some chocolate because she was sorry for me. But...” His voice died, and he clenched his teeth, not sure if he could continue. He was an adult man. He was always able to stand his ground, but now that his mind was back with his seventeen-year-old self, he wanted to crawl into the corner and cry in anguish.
David’s weight in his lap felt pleasant, and his arms welcoming when they curled around Raja’s neck. It was silly to find the person to confess to in an eighteen-year-old, yet Raja also knew that his story was exactly what David needed to hear. If Raja could save even one guy from the torment that he had endured, it would be worth opening his bruised heart.
“What did she do?” David whispered, curling up even closer, as if he wanted to melt into Raja and soak up all his troubles.
Raja shuddered, but his mouth spread into a smile. He had no idea why, maybe his body was trying to calm down that way. “She didn’t leave when I was supposed to undress. And then she rolled into bed with me and took off her clothes,” whispered Raja, looking away from David. “I... she slept with me. I know I shouldn’t have let her, but she was nice to me, and for the first time there I had a nice evening, and I just wanted not to hurt.” Raja took a deep breath and closed his eyes as his chest exploded with rage. “I hope she’s dead. I never killed anyone, but if I ever meet her, I don’t know what I’ll do. They all deserve hell.”
David took a deep breath, and a few more tears rolled down his cheeks. “I’m sorry I suggested there was something wrong with you… us. I suppose it’s just hard to accept that I can’t change it. Thank you for telling me what happened.” David leaned closer and gave Raja a gentle, salty kiss.
Raja exhaled and tightened his arms around David. “They later got shut down, you know, because of this sex therapist among other things, but even the group therapy... it’s cruel. And it just doesn’t work. All it does is make you disintegrate, lose touch with who you really are. That’s fucking terrifying, David. You have no idea.”
“I think I’d still be pushing away the idea of being gay if I hadn’t met you. You made me face it.” David snorted all of a sudden. “By making me face your dick, but still.” He gave Raja a tight hug.
Raja smirked and kissed David’s forehead, but he was calming down, and even the tightness in his throat receded gradually. He felt light-headed enough to fly up and bump into the ceiling like a helium balloon. “It was very effective.”
“You forced me to make decisions on the spot, and those came down to me liking what I saw.” David sighed. “I can’t imagine having to go through what you did. It impressed me how confident you were, how you just go for what you want. And after hearing your story… you’re so strong, Raja.”
David’s soft mouth was intoxicating when it touched Raja’s again, and Raja whimpered, opening up to the kiss. His heart thudded. There was a sweet emptiness in his head. For the first time someone heard his story and understood. “It took me ten years to get here. Not that easy to shake this kind of stuff off.”
“You’re the only one who knows about me,” David whispered and let his tongue join in for a kiss.
Raja nipped on David’s lip and nuzzled his nose. “And you’re the only one to know about me.”
David smiled into the kiss, stroking Raja’s hair. “Are you saying I’m special?”
Raja shrugged, slightly uneasy. He didn’t know where this was going. “Seems so.”
“How did you know I’m gay? Do I give off vibes?” David pulled away slightly, comfortably seated in Raja’s lap, as if it was his God-given right to be there. Raja supposed it was.
“I don’t think straight people would notice. I mean, you dress... European, but that’s cool. It’s more about the way you looked at me when we met,” said Raja and petted David’s head.
“How did I look at you?”
Raja smirked. “Like I was a Popsicle.”
David sighed and ran his fingers through Raja’s unruly hair. “That does sound about right.”
Raja leaned into the touch, watching David’s handsome face with a smile that wouldn’t drop off his face. It was strange just how light he felt on the inside, since he always thought the memories were best left buried. “I watched you like you were the tastiest pork chop. I needed to snatch you for myself.”
“I think there was a guy who tried to flirt with me at work, but I only realized it in retrospect.” David laughed, and sitting together in the darkness felt cozier than staying on a bed.
Raja frowned. ”Who?”
“This redhead, in his twenties. He was buying flowers for a restaurant nearby. I was so useless though. He asked me when I was off work, and now that I think about it, he probably wanted to meet up, but I was sure he wanted to know when the shop closed, so I told him that time…” He put his hand over his face.
“Would you have gone out with him?” asked Raja, increasingly agitated. Why would David tell him this kind of stuff? Right after confessing to Raja how impressive he found him?
“No! He wasn’t my type really…” David stroked Raja’s shoulders.
Raja harumphed, not entirely sure he was satisfied with this answer, but he didn’t have any right to make demands. “Okay.”
“Listen… I… There’s no good way to put it. I need to take a quick shower and change. Will you look after Bell for a few minutes?” He nuzzled Raja’s cheek.
Raja clenched his mouth, and looked toward the baby’s room and its horrendously tiring walls. “What will I do with it?”
“Just watch him, it’ll be fine. If he starts crying, knock on the shower door, and I’ll come over.” David slowly got up, as if he didn’t want to leave the place he’d cuddled up in.
Raja held his hand until it wasn’t possible anymore. “Sure, go.”
David smiled. “I’ll make it up to you for all this, I promise.”
Raja nodded and climbed back to his feet. Sure, he could watch the baby. As long as he didn’t have to watch the walls as well.
On soft knees, he walked back into the dark room.
Chapter 14
David changed after the quick shower and tried to not think about what a disaster this night had been so far. Not only had he come too soon, but Bell’s crying spoiled the mood, and then he was so rude to Raja, pushed him over the edge, forced Raja to confess that horrible story just because David wouldn’t shut up about the camp. He should have known better. If Raja had told him not to go, he must have had rea
sons, and there they were. Spelled out.
He dressed into a pair of gray sweatpants and a polo T-shirt, because there was no time to iron a fresh shirt, and the one he’d had on before got sweaty. He gave himself a quick look in the mirror. His eyes were red, but at least he put his hair in order.
When he went into the baby’s room, he stalled halfway and raised his eyebrows at Raja, who looked up at him from where he sat cross-legged on the floor. He waved at David and got back to his feet. “Do we need to do anything else with him?” he whispered, nodding toward the crib.
David shook his head, and a whole wave of butterflies rolled through his body. He needed to learn a way to navigate his emotions.
“No, I’ll just check up on him every now and then. He’ll be fine.” David grabbed Raja’s hand with a smile and pulled him into the corridor. “I’m sorry for this whole mess, I wanted this evening to be nice. How about I cook us something, and we start over?”
Raja looked at the baby’s door and exhaled. “Sure, why not. Let’s just get away or we’ll wake it up again.”
“Stop calling him ‘it’. His name is Bell.” David nuzzled Raja’s shoulder.
Raja rolled his eyes. “It’s not like he speaks. All babies look the same. They’re like bunnies. You don’t know before they start having dick on their mind.”
“Bunnies don’t have dick on their mind!” David looked at Raja in shock as they walked down the stairs, and into the large open plan kitchen.
“How do you know? Are you a bunny psychiatrist, or something?” asked Raja, but a smirk was tugging on the corners of his mouth already.
“As a matter of fact, I had a bunny when I was younger, and it was cute, and lovely. Are you vegetarian?” he asked and opened the fridge.
Raja snorted. “And gluten-free. No, of course I’m not vegetarian. You?” he asked, pulling David under his strong, fragrant arm.
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