Their fingers meet in a sea of butter and salt and Phil feels a thrill go through his entire body at the contact.
I don’t want to be friends, he thinks, a little petulantly. He’s feeling so damn sorry for himself, it takes him a while to notice that neither one of them has moved their hands- that their fingers have started caressing one another, without Phil intending to, or even realizing he was doing it.
He’s not sure what happens next, who starts it or how or why, but suddenly the popcorn is knocked onto the floor, spilling between their feet, and they’re kissing again. Conrad's buttery fingers are on Phil’s face, in his hair and Phil is gripping the front of Conrad's shirt, moaning into his mouth loud enough for anyone to hear.
Phil’s always thought it was incredibly tacky to make out at the movies, but fuck it, he couldn’t stop now even if he wanted to.
They kiss for longer than Phil can remember ever kissing anyone before, until his lips are sore and his face is itchy and chaffed from rubbing against Conrad's stubble.
They kiss for so long, he loses track of how long it’s been. He forgets where he is and what happened before and pretty much everything else in the world. He doesn't even realize how turned on he is until he feels Conrad's hand creeping up his thigh. Then it's like standing up after you've been sitting and drinking for a few hours, it all hits him at once. He slides down in his seat, angling his cock shamelessly towards Conrad, desperate for his touch.
Conrad runs his palm over the crotch of Phil's jeans and Phil gasps audibly and bites down hard on Conrad's tongue. Conrad makes a low groaning sound in response and starts rubbing at Phil through the cloth.
He’s so close, so fast, he feels he might scream or start sobbing from it, but instead he just whispers, “I’m gonna come,” frantically against Conrad's mouth.
Then, strangely, he hears people start to applaud. Phil thinks maybe it’s an auditory hallucination of some sort, that he’s coming unhinged from an excess of sexual arousal, or maybe this is just another stupid dream, but then Conrad is pulling away from him, taking his hands off him goddammit and Phil realizes the movie’s ending. The old people in the front are clapping as the credits roll (Phil can’t believe people actually do that) and another moment has been interrupted and possibly ruined.
“Oh God,” Conrad groans into his hands.
“You should come back to my place,” Phil says quickly, breathlessly. “It’s right across the street.” He’s not sure if he’ll actually be able to walk at this point- he’s pretty sure he’s crippled by his raging boner and might actually reach orgasm by chafing against his underwear if he moves so much as an inch- but in a few minutes, maybe.
The old clappers start heading out, giving Phil and Conrad peculiar looks as they shuffle past, and Conrad attempts to smile at them. It comes off more like a wince. Once they’re out of earshot, he turns to Phil with the same pained expression.
“I can’t do that, Phil,” he says.
“What? Why?”
“You know why,” Conrad says. He’s flushed and panting through his nose, his chest rising and falling rapidly. His hands are clenched tight on top of his thighs and he’s just as hard as Phil. How can he just stop like this, so easily, like it's nothing?
“I’m your teacher. This- I can’t. It’s not right.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Phil says.
Conrad sighs deeply and wipes his forehead. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t intend... ”
“Don’t you think we’re kind of past inappropriate already?” Phil asks. Really, is there any going back to normal student/teacher relations once genital fondling has occurred?
“Yes,” Conrad says. “But it’ll only get worse. You’re meant to graduate this year. I’m up for tenure. It’s- it could get us both in a lot of trouble.”
But you’ve done it before, haven’t you? Phil thinks, again. Why not me?
“Yeah, okay,” he says. “I get it. It’s cool.”
“I’m afraid I’m not handling this very well,” Conrad says, which is the understatement of the universe in Phil’s very biased opinion. He actually feels like he wants to physically injure Conrad, to hit him in the face or kick him in the nuts.
“I have to go,” Phil says.
Conrad's mouth is a thin line. He looks like he wants to say more, but he doesn’t. He nods, and Phil goes and somehow makes it back to his apartment without jizzing his pants or killing someone.
When he gets home he jerks off angrily into the toilet and punches the wall.
“Fuck!” he shouts, to no one in particular.
He can’t believe his professor is such a fucking cocktease.
Chapter 8
November 22
In my dream last night, I tried to make shrimp enchiladas in my toaster oven and burned down my entire apartment building. I had to run out into the street in my underwear, leaving behind everything I own and all my school work including my senior thesis. It was snowing outside and I stood there shivering, watching the fire and the people running out of the building. I felt so horrible, knowing it was all my fault, and I started to hear the voices in my head- the ones that I’ve only heard in dreams, but that I’m afraid will one day come to me in my waking life. They told me I was a terrible person for doing this and that I deserved to lose my home and fail out of school.
I wandered around town, trying to find someone who’d help me, or at least let me spend the night at their place, but it was like I was invisible. I saw a lot of people I knew, but they didn’t see me or maybe didn’t want to acknowledge me because they knew there was something wrong with me; I couldn’t tell which it was.
I knew I couldn’t go to my dad and give him another problem to worry about. I’d already felt guilty asking for the apartment in the first place- how could I ask him to get me another one now that I’d destroyed it?
Eventually I snuck on the PVTA bus to UMass, but I didn’t have any money and I worried the whole time that the driver would kick me off and I’d have to go back in the snow. I thought my feet might’ve gotten frostbite and I tried to rub them so they wouldn’t fall off.
Once I got to campus I tried to find my old dorm building, but there was a huge mansion where it used to be. I knocked on the door and nobody answered so I just went inside. I realized suddenly that I was in the sleep lab- thank God, a place with a bed. I went into one of the test rooms, crawled into a cot and promptly fell asleep.
I had some kind of weird dream within the dream that I don’t remember, but I’m pretty sure it was a nightmare even worse than the one I’d been having. I woke up sweaty and scared, my heart was racing. Conrad was there in the cot with me though, he’d gotten in behind me and wrapped his arm around me and I felt safe again as soon as I realized he was there. He kept telling me it was all right, it was going to be all right, and I believed him.
I told him what happened, what I’d done, and he didn’t judge me for it or laugh at my stupidity. He just held me and said that I could come home with him. I closed my eyes and when I opened them again we were at his house, up in that loft bedroom that I never got to see, but have imagined plenty of times. He was wrapped even more tightly around me and we were both naked, but it was strangely non-sexual.
I had a feeling of peace unlike anything I can remember experiencing outside, or even inside of dreams. It was a sense of belonging and acceptance; of being exactly where I was supposed to be and knowing that I wasn’t alone anymore. That I would never have to be alone again. I felt like I could say anything to Conrad and it would still be okay, he would still want me there with him.
By that time I’d forgotten about the fire. It didn’t seem important anymore.
When I woke up in my own bed I should’ve probably been relieved. My apartment was fine, there was no fire, but I was still alone and felt crushingly disappointed about it.
I wish I could stop having these dreams about him, or that I could forget them the way I seem to forget most of my other dreams.
It was bad enough when they were just about the sex, but lately they’ve become more about the feelings. Lately, in the dreams, it feels like he actually loves me, and I can’t believe I even just wrote that it’s so ridiculous.
It makes it so painful though, to see him in class or at the lab, to keep getting to know him better and better and yet know he doesn’t really feel that way. That he never will.
I don’t even go to the stupid Facebook page anymore. Looking at all those pictures, reading the stories about other students he’s been with (even if they’re rumors or outright lies) feels like torture now.
There are times I think it would be easy to get him into bed. Sometimes he looks at me a certain way and I know he’s thinking about what happened- what almost happened between us- and I think it would be so easy. Just get him alone and go for it, be seductive, take what you want. But then what? More apologies and hand-wringing? Would he ever be able to accept me as an equal and not feel as though being with me is some horrible sin?
I think that he’s probably right, it’s probably just impossible and I should let it go, so why can’t I?
At least the semester will be over soon. I just have to get through this Thanksgiving break and a couple more weeks after that, and then I won’t have to see him ever again if I don’t want to. He’s asked me to stay on at the lab next term, but I don’t know if I can do it.
I love working at the lab. Sometimes- like right now for instance- I come here when I don’t even need to. The research here is incredibly interesting and I’ve learned so much. I love coming here at times like this, when it’s empty and quiet and I can concentrate better than at the library or even my apartment. And I love coming here on nights when there’s a study going on where I can contribute and really feel as though I’m accomplishing something (even if it’s something weird and random). Most of all, I love being here when it’s just the two of us, me and Conrad. Not like that happens very much anymore. Sometimes it seems as though he's afraid to be alone with me.
At any rate, I don’t really want to quit. I just don’t know if-
Phil’s phone rings, startling and interrupting him, which is probably just as well considering how pathetic he was starting to sound there. He’s going to have to burn this journal one of these days. For now, he shoves it into his satchel and digs out his phone.
The number's not a familiar one, but when he answers the call he recognizes the voice right away.
“Hey, little shit!” his brother says. “Where the fuck are you?”
“Where the fuck are you?” Phil asks. He hasn’t seen Alex in over a year, since he was deployed to Afghanistan for the third time, and it’s been almost as long since they’ve spoken. There was one phone call, on Phil’s birthday, but the reception had been horrible and Phil’d only been able to understand a few choice words, mostly explicatives. Alex had sounded impossibly far away which, of course, he was.
This time it’s different. The call quality is good, almost the same as when Phil talks to his dad. It sounds like he could be stateside.
“I’m at Laguardia Airport, douchebag,” Alex says. “I’ve got two weeks. You coming home for turkey day or what?”
Phil’s been planning a trip home. His car is packed and ready to go, but he hasn’t exactly been looking forward to it. He was going to dawdle around here for awhile, get some work done for statistics, maybe do a little bit of data entry, and, of course, he’s supposed to leave his journal for Conrad. Not his private journal (the one he actually uses); but the one for class, the one without any dreams in it. Conrad asked everyone to drop them off in his office before Thanksgiving break, and he’s got a whole pile of them in there on his desk. Phil had been planning on fleshing his out a little bit, maybe making up some harmless anxiety dreams so that it’s not just 50 pages of “I don’t remember,” but now... well, now he’s got something to go home to.
This is how things are with Alex- Phil never knows when he’s coming or going and it’s only gotten worse since he joined the service. The good thing about that is, occasionally he’s pleasantly surprised.
“Yeah, absolutely!” Phil says. “Of course I am. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
If he leaves now, he can be home by dinnertime. He gathers his belongings quickly and shuts down his computer. Then on his way out, he ducks into Conrad's office to toss his dream journal into the pile. It’s an afterthought, and he’s not paying attention.
He’s halfway down Route 91 when he remembers he’d been writing in the other journal before he got distracted by Alex’s phone call- the real journal which, from the outside, looks exactly like the journal for class. It was in his satchel, they were both in his satchel, and he has no idea which one he left on Conrad's desk.
The anticipation and elation he’d been feeling about seeing his brother vanish immediately, replaced by throat-tightening, chest-clenching panic.
“Fuck!” he shouts, banging his fist against the steering wheel. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”
His satchel’s in the backseat and he cranes around, trying to grab it and drag it up front with him, but it’s out of his reach and he nearly sideswipes an eighteen-wheeler in the process of his mad groping.
“Fuck!” he shouts again. Something like an eternity passes, and then he finally sees an exit for a rest stop. He pulls off the highway and swerves into a spot in front of a travel plaza, tires squealing, and dumps the contents of his satchel onto the passenger seat.
Once he’s got the journal in his hands, he closes his eyes for a minute and silently begs the universe to spare him this indignity. Just this once, he thinks. Please. He never paid much attention during Hebrew school- he doesn’t know any real prayers- but he remembers his nana saying “Barukh ata” all the time during holidays, so he adds that, hopefully, at the end.
Then he opens his eyes, opens the notebook and sees giant words staring back at him. I DON’T REMEMBER. All caps.
Phil feels something rising in his throat (a scream, or possibly vomit) but he swallows it down, shoves the notebook away and gets back on the highway, in the opposite direction, as quickly as possible.
Christ, how is he such a fucking moron? It’s almost impressive. Fucking epic stupidity, bro, that’s what Alex would say and he would be right.
“It’s okay,” he tells himself as he drives. “It’s only been a few hours. He probably hasn’t even picked them up yet.”
It wouldn’t be so bad, he thinks, if it was only the one entry from today, but the whole damn notebook is full of shit like that. He’s had dozens of dreams about Conrad, most of them extremely sexual, and he’s written about almost all of them. In excruciating, agonizing detail. That’s not to even mention all the stupid comments he’s added to the entries about his feelings, all his whining and pining and general pathetic behaviors.
“It’s the day before Thanksgiving,” he tells himself. “He’s probably not even going in today. He probably won’t even pick them up till Friday.”
Do British people celebrate Thanksgiving, though? Phil’s pretty sure they don’t, but Conrad lives in America now- surely he must do something? If nothing else, it’s a day off work. Why would he go in today, when he doesn’t have to?
“I went in,” Phil says. “I like when it’s quiet. He likes when it’s quiet, too. He’s probably there right now. Fuck!”
He talks to himself in this demented fashion for pretty much the entire drive back to Amherst, but it keeps him focused, keeps him from speeding or driving erratically. He may be losing his mind, but at least he won’t get a ticket.
Fortunately, the campus has turned into a ghost town in the few short hours since he left and he manages to find a parking space fairly close to Tobin Hall. He sprints to the sleep lab, keeping an eye out for Conrad's car (and Conrad himself) along the way. No trace of him outside, so that’s a good sign.
Please, please, please, he thinks, and walks into the lab.
Conrad is here.
Conrad is in his office, Phil can s
ee him through the little window and his heart drops into his shoes.
Conrad is sitting with his feet on his desk. There’s music playing- The Who, he’s listening to The Who and tapping his toe and reading something. He’s reading something.
He stops when he hears Phil come in, looks through the window and spots Phil standing there and the look on his face is all Phil needs to see. His eyes get wide, his jaw goes slack and Phil knows. He knows beyond certainty and without a doubt that Conrad was reading his fucking journal.
Chapter 9
Phil's had some mortifying moments in his life. Wetting his pants the first day of school when he was six years old; his mother's alters making surprise appearances at various events throughout his childhood; drinking too much and vomiting on his crush during a high school keg party, the list goes on and on. But nothing could have prepared him for this, the culmination of a 23 year career in humiliation.
For a long, horrible moment they stare at each other through the glass, and Phil seriously considers just getting the hell out of there. Just walking out of the lab and never coming back. He doesn't need Conrad's class to graduate, he could figure something out.
That would be pathetic, though. Cowardly, and Phil's not a coward. He may be a lot of things- irritable, awkward, obsessive and a bit of a nerd- but he is not a coward.
Besides, Conrad really shouldn't have been reading that journal. It should've been obvious, when he opened the notebook and saw the words "cock" and "orgasm" all over the place, that it wasn't something Phil meant for him to see. Phil has a right to be angry here. And he is, suddenly and viciously, angry.
This is the reason he never wanted to keep a journal in the first place! Conrad is the one who told him it was a good idea, told him some introspection would be good for him. Good for what? So Conrad could read it himself? Sit back and have a "jolly good" laugh at Phil's expense? It's like entrapment or something.
Dreaming of You: M/M Gay Romance Page 7
