B-SIDE

Narcissist / Fuck Myself!

He and I seldom discussed things an overeager psychologist fresh from university would deem important, let alone the five minutes that would eternally alter our lifelong friendship.
We stayed in a small hotel room to save the money we didn’t have. One bathroom, one couch – ‘couch’ is generous – and one bed. One bed. It was custom to make jokes bordering on homophobic, and this case was no different; the material wrote itself.
It happened on the first night of three. I wish it happened on night three.
I recall how the oppressive midmorning sun took a stab at each of us, surprisingly going easier on his unguarded skin than on my admittedly overly creamy layer of sunscreen, even for my own sun-smart standards. Had anyone squeezed me like a sponge, sunscreen would’ve oozed out my pores.
‘How are you not burnt?’
‘I am, so what?’ I could never be so breezy. I have tried. Dusk hit us like a truck, so we returned to our tiny room, sandy, and surely tasting of what my homecooked meals are always lacking.
I think it truly began when his refusal to shower was the best news I’d heard in months. I wanted all of him? I wanted none of him to wash off in the lukewarm water and flee back out to the sea we had just spent the day in?
‘All good, we’ll sweat when we sleep anyway,’ I yelled over the water drumming away at the misty shower door.
He tended to sleep naked. I did not. I kept my briefs on and slithered under the thin sheet we felt was sufficient for a night so temperate. I lay on my right shoulder to face the wall, thinking he’d understandably drifted off during my lengthy shower. I switched off the lamp and let out a habitual drawn-out sigh, ready to get four hours of sleep. He broke the silence with a joke.
‘Alright bro, I’m just gonna jerk off here if that’s okay with you.’
I returned the blasé attitude.
‘No worries, as long as you clean up when you’re done.’
He let out an infectious chuckle, accidentally complemented by two streams of air that shot out my nose.
‘Okay, I’ve started jerking off,’ he said with his usual candour that often blurred every line ever drawn.
‘Thanks for letting me know.’ I couldn’t help my laughter. I was in on the joke. He wasn’t.

 I jolted awake, assuming I had one of those half-dreams where you catch yourself falling. My eyes shut once more, and this they did for the last time for the next five minutes.
His breathing was heavy – I had only heard him like this when he’s in the middle of his routine pre-breakfast fifty push-ups. We hit a point of no return when one of those deep breaths morphed into a restrained moan. I felt the tips of his heels against the soles of my feet and so I decided to match him in his choice of sleeping attire. My left hand lowered. Our breathing synchronised so flawlessly as if a mirror lay sidewise in the bed’s centre. The mirror must have been as real as the crummy mattress we lay on because I was soon staring at myself, at him. The disbelief in our eyes was shadowed by our apprehensive euphoria. Unlike mine, his mouth stayed wide open as we traversed this moment, with each exhale pushing a scent into my face I would usually find repulsive. Even his un-showered body glistening with sweat and God knows what else was a joy to my nose.
 He and I were racing, but we both took care in ensuring neither of us got left behind. He took his free hand, ran his lean fingers through the cluster of damp hair at the back of my head, and grabbed a handful. He held me with a firm grip that said, ‘you’re not mine and I’m not yours. We are.’ I care little for what that grip was saying, I was his. My mouth finally gaped open; the light turned green.
‘This is real.’
 And by all accounts, it was.