Everyone, Anyone

Fred asked me to consider fucking Hunter with him.

“OK,” I said.

“Just OK?” Fred asked.

“As in sure,” I said back.

It was definitely a sure. A fine. Let's do this. I’d never met Hunter. Fred and I decided to open up our relationship three months before. I still hadn’t slept with anyone else yet. The only thing I’d done was jerk off into a middle-aged man’s mouth at the gym. We were in the handicapped restroom of the locker room and he told me to cum into his mouth. I was horny. He was nice looking and named Thomas and had big, sad hands. Sometimes hands make me sad. Hands that I just want to kiss and press against my face. I wanted to do that when he was kneeling down before me—his gym shorts hanging around his ankles—and staring up at me. His mouth was open and his eyes were wide; his hands were pressing down on the white tile floor for support. He looked like a statue in a fountain I’d seen once. I almost started to laugh when I was looking down at him because I imagined water shooting out of his mouth and people throwing pennies around him. But if I laughed, I wouldn’t cum, so I held it in.

Fred and I were laying in bed on a Sunday morning when he asked me to be open. I was checking an email my mom sent me about dates she wanted to me to consider for a visit from her and my stepdad. My mom was into sending emails, even for things she could have texted. Always emails. Text messages were just to tell me she’d landed somewhere, or sometimes to say I love you before she went to bed. Whenever I replied to an email from her, I pretended text messages hadn’t been invented and emails were the only way people could stay in touch. This is just the way things are, I would think to myself.

I could feel Fred was watching me and when I put my phone down and looked at him, he just blurted it out. He was bursting. He’d been waiting for a while to talk to me about it. He sounded robotic, but full proof. He was a lawyer and lived in pros and cons. To him, the pros were plenty. He was secure with us. Us, his future. Us, his long-term. He was in it. The way he said it made it sound contractual. I looked over his naked body and imagined myself writing contractual in cursive into the air above it.

“Having sex with other people is just inevitable,” Fred said.

I agreed.

“It won’t mean anything other than sex to me,” he said next. 

“Same,” I said.

“So, you’re good with it?” he asked.

“I’m good with it,” I said.

He stared above me for a second, like he was looking up at a passing jet. Then he looked back down.

“You’ve been thinking about it, too,” he said.

“I guess sometimes,” I said.

Then we were kind of just there and quiet for a few minutes.

“It could be fun,” I said. “I’m down to try.”

Fred said we could have threesomes. I said maybe, but not right now. Then he kissed me and got up and went to get Starbucks.

I took a shower and started to cry. I felt like I should be crying, so I did. And then I started to actually cry. And then I threw up. I almost didn’t make it out of the shower. I’d never puked naked, so after the third and final hurl, I dropped my head between my legs and looked down at my cock and balls hanging like a church bell. I thought about the inside of my body and all the blood rushing to my face and how mushed and purple it probably looked right now. I heard the whirring in my brain that you can hear when you’re upside down. It’s the closest thing you get to freezing time. I felt peace.

When Fred came back with coffee, we fucked. We hadn’t in eight days.

I told Fred I didn’t want to hear about the guys he slept with until one day I did. I pictured him sucking someone else’s dick when I was in a board meeting at work and when I got back to my desk, I texted him and asked him how many guys he had been with. He said 3. I stared at that number for a while before I replied to him. I typed out “3???????” then deleted it. I had to be calm. Chill. I wanted him to marvel at my chill.

ME: Cool :)

FRED: Are you OK with that?

ME: Yes.

FRED: Are you sure?

ME: Yes!

FRED: What about you?

I had to say something.

ME: 1 guy.

FRED: Nice :)

ME: :)

I was embarrassed about lying. I almost turned to Alyssa, who sits next to me at work, and said, “I’m embarrassed!” No context. I swiveled my chair over and waited for her to stop typing and look at me. When she finally did, I just smiled weirdly, then turned my chair back and faced my computer. Alyssa immediately messaged me on Gchat:

ALYSSA: What?

I thought of something fast; something stupid our coworker had said in a meeting earlier.

ALYSSA: He’s a fucking idiot.

ME: I know.

I texted Fred from the bathroom stall.

ME: It was hot btw.

FRED: That’s good!

Over the next week, I lied to Fred about sleeping with another guy. He asked me to get tested; he had just gone. I told him I would, and actually wrote typed in a reminder on my phone to make an appointment while he was sitting next to me on the couch.

***

We were on the subway one night after a friend’s birthday dinner when Fred first told me about Hunter. We were both drunk and I was resting my head on Fred’s shoulder and looking at our reflection in the dark subway window.

“I’ve been having sex with this guy,” Fred said, out of nowhere.

“Who?” I asked, without lifting my head up from his shoulder.

“His name is Hunter,” Fred said.

“How old is he?” I asked.

“26,” Fred said.

He’d found Hunter on Grindr. Fred told him the first time they met up, I was in the Hamptons for a bachelor party. I didn’t know what to say, so I asked where Hunter went to college.

“I don’t know,” Fred said, almost as a question. “Some Ivy League.”

Fuck him, I thought.

Fred then said Hunter had bad furniture. I lifted my head off his shoulder and stared ahead at the door on the end of the car. I wanted to go out onto that little bridge outside that connects the two cars and scream into the screeching brakes. I asked how many other times they’d met up since the night they first fucked.

“Two,” Fred said.

I didn’t say anything and didn’t look at him till we were above ground again and walking home. I walked ahead of him. Fred walked behind with his head down. I thought about how long we could walk like this.

‘We’ll just walk and walk and walk,’ I thought.

We won’t stop walking. Day and night. Walk, walk, walk.

“There go those walkin’ gays,” people would say.

Then I wanted to run. I’d steal Fred’s keys, run to our apartment building, up the four flights of stairs and lock him out. Then would go on the roof of our building and throw empty cans and other trash at him. I would watch him run around, dodging things.

“It’s fine,” I said finally, turning around to face Fred.

He looked up and grinned.

“Really?” Fred asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s just fun.”

“I love you,” Fred said.

He’s so grateful for me, I thought; he was humbled by my grace.

“I love you too,” I said.

We kissed. When we got back to our apartment, we had sex on the couch in front of the TV. Fred’s shirt was on the whole time, and I was too drunk to take my pants and shoes off. We were loud and knocked over a lamp; our neighbor downstairs yelled at us from her window.

Afterward, we flopped onto the rug that Fred’s aunt and uncle gave us, panting. Fred kissed me on the cheek and got up to go to the bathroom. He pissed with the door open and then started brushing his teeth. I watched from the floor.

“He wants to meet you,” Fred said with his mouth full of toothpaste.

“What?” I asked.

“Hunter wants to meet you,” Fred said.

I didn’t say anything back. Fred spit into the sink and turned the faucet on.

***

I spent the next week searching for Hunter on Facebook, and Instagram, and eventually LinkedIn. I used Alyssa’s LinkedIn because I had deleted mine between jobs once to feel radical. After Alyssa gave me her password, I explained, over Gchat, that I was looking up a business contact named Hunter who I’d met at a party, but whose card I’d lost.

ME: So many gay Hunters!

Alyssa didn’t reply.

I didn’t find Hunter on LinkedIn. Fred had never told me what he did for a living. I assumed he was a Broadway gay, or maybe even a Disney gay. He probably worked at a startup in Flatiron. A successful one he’d gotten in with a month or two after he graduated. He’d really lucked out. At one point, I had decided that Hunter was a DJ or a muse.

I refreshed Fred’s Instagram every chance I could get at work, or at the gym, or when I was out with friends. Any time I wasn’t with Fred. I wanted to see if he’d followed Hunter, or if Hunter had followed him. Neither had. Fred told me they never exchanged numbers and when they did chat, it was just on Grindr, and only about sex. I said I believed him. Fred said Hunter liked the idea of a couple regularly plowing him. Fred actually said “plowing” and I thought that was corny.

“Hot,” I said.

One day when I was out to lunch with Alyssa, and she was in the bathroom, I checked Instagram and saw Hunter had followed Fred. I stared at his name for a moment. I got dizzy. I imagined myself as a hammer, spinning out into space forever. When I composed myself, I clicked on Hunter’s profile. Private.

Of course he’s private, I thought, even though I was private on Instagram, too.

I couldn’t make out his face from his thumbnail photo — a silhouette from below, against a dusky, lavender sky. It was beautiful. Alluring. Perfect.

By the time Alyssa and I had gotten back to work, Fred had followed Hunter back. And by the time I left work, Hunter had liked four of Fred’s photos: three recent photos and a photo from eight months ago, of Fred and me at my cousin’s wedding. Fred didn’t mention that he’d followed Hunter that night, or the next night, or that weekend. Not once. I waited for him to and he didn’t.

On Sunday night, I told him about Thomas at the gym when we were in line for a movie.

“That’s hot,” Fred said.

“It was really hot,” I said.

Fred kissed me on the lips and smiled. During the movie, I went to the bathroom and sent a request to follow Hunter on Instagram.

I couldn’t sleep that night. I looked over and watched Fred sleeping. He was on his side and every time he breathed, he looked like bread rising in an oven. I went to the bathroom with my phone and sat on the toilet and pissed sitting down. I checked Instagram to see if Hunter had accepted my request. He hadn’t. I flushed the toilet and brushed my teeth twice before I cancelled my request. I got back in bed and fell asleep immediately.

On the subway the next morning, when the train was crossing the bridge and my body was pressed against the glass, I reached for my phone out of my pocket and gingerly moved it up to my face, almost grazing the elderly woman standing against me. I checked Instagram and saw that Hunter had followed me. He must have been notified. I almost dropped my phone and caught it before it hit in the ground, my face tucked in the arm of the woman in front of me. She looked down at me blankly and I apologized. By lunchtime, I had requested to follow him back, and almost immediately, he’d accepted.

He was handsome. Sure. I wanted to yell “He’s just FINE” in my office. He had brown hair and blue eyes and good teeth. Nice, easy arm veins. Toned. Probably does Ketamine. He parties a lot and it doesn’t show. I remembered looking at photos of myself from six or so years ago, when I was his age and doing way too much MDMA — only sleeping semi-regularly four nights a week. I swear it looked like my mouth and eyes were never in the same place. Lava lamp face. Molly face. Not Hunter, though. He glistened. He didn’t need sleep.

I figured he was about six foot. He looked nothing like me, which made me happy. His profile included his last name; I found him on Facebook. He worked in finance, had lots of friends, four attractive siblings, a family lake house, and was from St. Louis. He liked to paddle board.

I waited for Fred to text me, busting me for following Hunter; telling me how weird it was. That I was being psycho. I imagined Hunter texting him about it.

HUNTER: He requested to follow me and then cancelled it.

FRED: I’m so sorry.

HUNTER: It’s fine. I just feel weird now.

FRED: I’ll talk to him.

HUNTER: I don’t want to cause any problems.

FRED: You didn’t. He did.

But Fred didn’t say anything about it. He only texted that one of our friends was mad his new boyfriend wasn’t included in the Fire Island house.

ME: He’ll get over it.

FRED: How’s your day?

ME: Good. Just busy. You?

FRED: Same.

He sent a photo of his friend’s new braces, then we didn’t text for the rest of the day.

Later at the gym, I pretended to not see Thomas. We were both on treadmills—he at one a row back. But we locked eyes in the mirror. I felt like he was trying to nod at me as he ran, but I just squinted my eyes and pretended to cough.

When I was leaving the gym, I saw that Hunter had messaged me “Hey :)” on Instagram.

I didn’t open it to reply; he could not see that I read it. I stared at it from afar, hearing the subway brakes cry out as we rounded corners in the dark. Before I walked into our apartment, I opened the message, and replied “What’s up?”and then put my phone on airplane mode.

Fred came home late from a work dinner. He was drunk, and started undressing as soon he closed the door behind him. I was on the couch, my phone placed in the drawer of my night stand. A sarcophagus. Fred crashed down onto the floor, and flopped onto his stomach, his face down in the carpet, breathing into the air pocket beneath him. I watched him and concentrate as he took his socks and shoes off.

“Hunter said you guys talked,” Fred said, not looking at me.

I didn’t say anything. If I moved, I would look guilty. Fred finished taking his other shoe and sock off and looked over at me. I met his eyes. He looked like he was trying not to smile. Or laugh.

“What?” I asked.

“Did you guys talk?” Fred asked.

I wanted for a moment, then said, “Barely.”

“Barely,” Fred repeated.

He stood up, completely naked, and walked over to the fridge, taking out the Brita filter, spilling some water as he poured into a glass.

“He followed me,” I said.

Fred was gulping water. He set the glass down and looked over at me, warmly, but knowingly.

“You didn’t follow him first?” he asked.

I stared at him. I could feel a seismic sob rising. But I kept it down. I smiled.

“Possibly,” I said.

Fred raised his eyebrows teasingly and walked towards the bedroom.

“Are you mad?” I asked.

“No,” he said, his lovely, bare ass rippling a little as he walked.

When he got to the door, he looked back.

“I think it’s hot,” he said.

He disappeared into the bedroom. I sat on the couch and stared at the empty doorway. I heard the shower start.

I felt mad.

I wanted to yell at Fred.

“Not everything is hot!” I would say. Then I would add “Hunter has an earring but only wears it on weekends! That’s STUPID.” Instead, I went into the kitchen and chugged three glasses of wine over the sink.

When Fred was out of the shower, I sucked his dick. He came on my chest. I didn’t move for five minutes. I let it sit there, trailing off either side of me.

Hunter never replied to my reply. I waited for him to for most of the next day at work. It was excruciating. I barely listened to Alyssa at lunch, or paid attention to an important presentation some clients gave in the afternoon. When I was walking out of the office, towards the elevators, I saw Hunter had gone through and liked six of my photos.

‘One more like than Fred,’ I thought.

I felt triumphant. At the gym, I saw Thomas again. He was standing by the free weights. He asked how I was doing.

“Good!” I said, loud and strange, barely looking at him.

Thomas seemed slightly put off, but nodded politely.

“See you,” he said.

I took a shower at the gym, which I never did, and walked naked through the locker room, holding my towel in my hand.

That night, Fred asked me if I wanted to have a threesome with Hunter. I was no stranger to threesomes. There was a roughly eight month period in New York, right before Fred, where I was committed to having as much group sex as possible. My orgy days.

We stood in the kitchen, and checked our schedules. It felt so professional. I was proud of us. I had a work party on Friday night, and Saturday and Sunday we were going upstate for Fred’s sister’s birthday, so we decided next Thursday.

“Cool,” Fred said.

He got up and walked over to the couch, turning the TV on.

I stayed at in the kitchen. I felt anxious. I had the sudden impulse to start clapping. “Are you going to ask him?” I asked.

“What?” Fred said.

“Hunter,” I said.

“Yeah,” Fred said back, impatiently.

I coolly nodded and pretended to tidy up the kitchen. Later, before bed, Fred poked his head out from the bathroom with shaving cream on his face.

“Thursday works for him,” Fred said.

“Great,” I said.

***

On Wednesday afternoon, Fred texted me and another number I didn’t know.

FRED: Hey guys.

I knew immediately the other number was Hunter.

FRED: I thought it’d be good for all of us to say hi!

I didn’t even ask Fred if they had only ever messaged on Grindr. Maybe they’d crossed into texting a while back and Fred just didn’t tell me. My phone vibrated. It was Hunter now.

HUNTER: Hey guys :)

‘That little fuck,’ I thought.

HUNTER: I’m excited for tomorrow.

FRED: We are too.

Fred added a tongue emoji. I tried to think of the last time Fred used a tongue emoji with me. I couldn’t. I hated them both. I could picture their text conversations, months and months worth. Tongue emojis. Heart eyes. Swapping songs. Trauma bonding. Deep, aching sexting. They didn’t need me. They wanted to bring me in to make it less suspicious. It’d be easier that way. Bring me in and then expel me into the air. I would assume less if it was all out in the open, if I was participating. They’d kiss long and deep and stare into each other’s eyes when Fred was fucking him. They think I wouldn’t see. But I would see. Of course I would.

I waited for thirty more minutes before replying.

ME: Hey sorry! Didn’t have my phone on me.

I thought that was good.

ME: I’m excited.

Then I added the squirt emoji.

Hunter never replied. Neither did Fred. I wanted to die.

***

Fred had to work late that night. I was short with him when he called to tell me. He asked if I was all right. I told him I was just tired.

“I love you,” Fred said.

“Bye,” I said.

I jerked off on the couch in front of our TV three times to our group text.

The next morning Hunter texted our thread. I kept referring to it in my head as our thread. I had resigned to it being our new normal: the three of us. Texting plans. Good mornings. Links to weird videos. Good nights.

HUNTER: What time works tonight?

Maybe they hadn’t texted each other before, I thought.

Hunter could have just asked Fred on his own. I felt supernaturally certain they’d only talked on Grindr, and for the few minutes before and after they fucked. Niceties. Bare minimum. It was strictly business with them. I decided that Hunter was sensible.

He has good boundaries, I thought.

He knew Fred had a boyfriend. A partner. I was his partner. I thought about introducing myself to Hunter that way.

“Hello, I’m Fred’s partner,” I would say when I met him, shaking his hand.

FRED: Is 9 good?

Look at him, speaking on behalf of us, I thought. Maybe I had plans; I am a very busy person.

ME: 9:30 works better for me…

I waited. I could feel Fred side-eyeing my text through the screen, and suddenly felt stupid.

HUNTER: 9:30 is great :) Can’t wait.

ME: We can’t wait either.

Fred texted a thumbs up emoji, and that was that.

Around 4:30 PM, Alyssa messaged me on Gchat and asked me to go to a comedy show with her that night. A guy she was sleeping did standup; she vowed to never see him play because she wanted to keep fucking him, but at the last minute, she decided to go. I told her I couldn’t because I felt sick. I didn’t have to lie.

It was getting easier for me to lie. Fred now thought I’d slept with two other guys. Just last week, I told him I fucked one of them on my lunch break at work. He thanked me for being so transparent.

I skipped the gym. On the subway home, I looked around at everyone and almost started giggling. The world was happening around me and no one knew what I was about to do. I was in some kind of plasma—a secret, protective sac with Fred and Hunter. Nothing else could penetrate. We woke up that day divided and would end it together. Entangled. Merged. I saw the three of us as one mass.

I cleaned the apartment and ate edamame I saved from the night before. I sat on top of the kitchen counter and drank wine from the bottle. I smoked a cigarette out the window of our bedroom. I never smoked. I sprayed Lysol everywhere. I lit three different candles before settling on one. It smelled like burnt orange and metal. I got hard and took a shower.

Fred came home when I was drying off. It was 8:20. He looked stressed. I asked him if he was OK.

“Bad day at work,” he said.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Don’t worry,” he said.

He kissed me on the lips and stared at me for a moment. He looked loving. Then he stroked my face and walked past me into the bathroom, turning on the shower.

“You still want to do this, right?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he called out.

I fixed my hair in the mirror.

“You should ask one of the guys you’ve been with for a threesome, too,” Fred said.

I turned and saw him, naked, one foot in the shower, one on the bathmat. He smiled— I could have sworn there was a challenge behind it. Maybe even meanness. A slight crack. Mocking. I didn’t flinch.

“For sure,” I said.

He vanished behind the curtain.

He knows I lied, I thought. He must.

I felt ashamed. This was a terrible idea. I didn’t want Hunter to come. I could fake being sick. We didn’t owe Hunter anything. Fuck him for thinking we did. It was always us: Fred and me. We didn’t need anyone else. This is our home. This is our sac. Our plasma. We were bringing in an outside party. An invader. He would claim a space in our space. A tiny pocket of Hunter—it would always be his. I could clean it or ignore it. But there it would be there forever. Lingering. Faint and noxious at once. I wanted to tell Fred everything right then and there. Come clean about my lies.

“Did you see the text?” Fred asked.

Fred walked out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist.

“No,” I said.

He held his phone up.

“Hunter,” Fred said.

“He’s flaking,” I said.

“No,” Fred said. “He’s close by and wondered if 9 works.”

I looked at the alarm clock. 8:40.

“9 works,” I said, without hesitation.

***

I hid in the bathroom when Fred answered the door. I could hear him and Hunter. It sounded like they hugged. No kissing though. Formal. Familiar. I heard Hunter say something. It sounded like my name. He was quiet, maybe nervous. Respectful.

I knew I liked him, I thought.

Then I heard Fred say, “He’s in the bathroom.”

I looked at myself in the mirror, and then around the bathroom . I wanted to remember how it all looked. It would be different after.

When I walked into the room, Hunter looked right at me.

“Nice to meet you,” Hunter said to me.

He smiled. He looked kind. He was still as handsome as he looked in photos, but smaller. Even frail.

Little twerp, I thought.

For a second, I was unimpressed. I felt like I towered over Hunter. I felt impossible and unreachable. I wanted him to feel that. I wanted Hunter to want my good favor. I wanted him to fall to my feet and grovel.

“Good to see you,” I said to Hunter, as warm as I could.

My instinct was to shake his hand, but he went in for a hug.

Power move, I thought.

He smelled good. His hair was thick.

“Your apartment is nice,” Hunter said.

“Thank you,” I said.

“How long have you been here,?” He asked.

“Two years,” Fred said.

Hunter looked around the room, sizing it up. It made me mad.

“Should we sit?” I said.

“Yeah,” Hunter said.

We made our way to the couch. I brought over wine for us. Hunter asked for a beer.

Of course, I thought.

I brought him one. We talked for exactly eight minutes before Fred and Hunter started kissing. I was surprised at how little it made me feel. I watched it like a movie I’d seen a thousand times on a Saturday afternoon. Easy, boring. I felt a compulsion to check my email. Suddenly, Hunter reached for my knee, and then my crotch, as he tongue kissed Fred. He looked right into my eyes when Fred kissed his neck.

About two minutes later, we were in bed and completely naked. Hunter had started blowing both of us while we stood over him in the living room. I kissed Fred while he did it. Hunter’s body was nice. Not muscular, but toned.

Paddle boarding! I thought.

Nice hands, nice feet. Good lips. A good, plump ass.

I get it, I thought.

In bed, Hunter begged Fred to fuck him. He got on his back and Fred started to play with his ass, jerking himself off. They kissed and Hunter softly repeated the word “Please.” I was excited. I felt completely fine. They had done this alone and it was fine. They knew each other’s bodies. They’d probably fucked more than Fred said, but it didn’t matter. It was OK. I was OK. The trust I felt was divine. Sent by heaven. There was no jealously. Maybe I had never known jealously. Gaze upon my ease.

“I can’t right now,” Fred said.

I snapped out of it and looked up. Fred was flustered and red. His dick was only semi-hard and he looked over at me, and for a second I thought he was going to burst into tears. I looked at Hunter. He was still on his back. He looked kind of impatient.

Don’t be a brat, I thought.

Fred looked at me, almost panicked.

“It’s OK,” I said to him.

I moved into Fred’s place and got in Hunter easily. Fred lay on his side, stroking himself.

Hunter and I fucked for a while. It was tender. When he wanted me to go hard, I did. We talked to each other. We kissed. We pressed our foreheads against each other. I felt like our irises were the same color. I imagined looking at my face again in the mirror after. My hair would be Hunter’s brown. My eyes would be his blue. We would rub off on each other.

When we came, we came together. I went to look at Fred. I hadn’t looked at him once. He wasn’t there. I looked down at Hunter who was also looking for him, too. He glanced up at me and jutted his lower jaw, as if to say uh-oh. I rolled over and stood up. I walked out of the bedroom. I heard the bathroom door close behind me.

On one of the stools at the kitchen island, Fred sat in his briefs. He was on his phone, drinking a glass of wine. He looked up and grinned.

“Are you OK?” I asked.

“Yeah!” Fred said.

“Are you sure?” I asked, standing there naked.

“Definitely,” he said.

I nodded. I heard Hunter being busy in the bedroom. I looked behind and saw him putting on his shirt. He jingled his keys and stepped out into the living room, grabbing his coat off of a chair. He looked sweet and sheepish. Fred stood up and started walking towards him.

“I’m just gonna hop in the shower,” Fred announced to the room.

He walked up to Hunter.

“Good to see you,” Fred said. He kissed Hunter on the cheek and gave him a playful swat on his ass. Hunter turned red. Fred walked into the bedroom and closed the bathroom door. I stood there, still naked, and Hunter cautiously walked over to me.

“He’s good?” Hunter asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “He just got tired.”

***

“Did you like it?” Fred asked later in bed.

It was after we’d said good night, and I was on my side trying to sleep. I’d been looking up out the window above our bed at a vapor trail in the sky expanding like a lung, lit by the lights of Manhattan across the river. I knew Fred had been awake for a while before he said something. It was so still in the room that I could hear him blinking.

“Yes,” I said. “It was fun.”

I rolled over and faced him. I could see his eyes, clear and wide, even in the burning static you see when your eyes adjust to the night.

“Did you like it?” I asked.

“Mhm,” Fred said.

“Do you think it was a good idea?” Fred said.

“Sure,” I said.

“Me too,” he said.

Fred looked at me. I suddenly felt desperate for him.

“I love you,” he said.

“I love you,” I said.

Fred turned over and pressed his body against mine and I held onto him like he was falling away.