The Gay Delusion

4: The Ghastliness Delusion

Hola, beautiful people! Here is an update that I hope you enjoy, and just a quick thank you for all your insanely kind comments last chapter; I would love to know what you think of this one! Dedicated to Tessa, who probably didn't realize just quite how much it meant when she complimented my ability to write characters :)

4: The Ghastliness Delusion

Waking up next to someone was one of the strangest things in the world.

It didn't happen very often, but when it did, I was always struck with the idea of just how bizarre it was.

In theory, people could do almost anything they wanted when you were asleep - hurt you in ways that, ironically, you never dreamed someone could be capable of. And yet sometimes, it would feel almost as natural as breathing, to just relax and let all of your senses fade away beside somebody.

It was oddly humbling, too, to realise that you weren't the only person in the world who seemed to stop every night and close their eyes - who hadn't felt a single second of the passing time as warm unconsciousness washed over you and you slipped away into oblivion.

And then there was waking up, to a world that often felt exactly the same as it had before you fell asleep, wondering how many breaths you had breathed over the course of the night, wondering in moments of madness if you even still existed when you slept alone.

It had happened twice recently, counting the night of my leaving party. On the most recent occasion that it had happened, I had been too exhausted by work to tell the boy in my bed to get out of it and go home, having seen that he was completely knackered by work, too.

'Ciao ciao babycakes,' I said down the phone breezily. At least, I hoped I sounded breezy and chilled out. I clutched my handbag a little more tightly and glanced down at my tapping feet, stood on the pavement outside the pub, surprisingly nervous about what I was going to ask.

I heard a laugh burst down the other end of the phone like a supernova, heat immediately rushing through me.

'Hola, sweetness. Didn't expect to hear back from you so soon. Are you calling for your old job back already?' Lewis asked teasingly. 'It's only your first day - I thought you would have lasted at least a week without seeing this face.'

'Oh ha ha, hilarious master of wit. And actually, no. In fact, I was calling you specifically with a bit of a job proposition,' I replied, twirling a strand of brown hair that had fallen in front of my face around my finger absentmindedly.

'Why?' Lewis asked, amused suspicion coating his voice. 'Have you called to offer me the position of your bitch?' I could hear his smile, easily imagining his eyes crinkling up in the corners in that familiar way.

'If you want it.'

There was a pause.

'What - seriously?'

'Seriously. No strings attached, as kinky as you like.'

Lewis let out a bark of laughter, which didn't stop for a solid minute and a half. He wasn't one to laugh all that often, but when he did, it took over him completely. I was quite proud to be able to say that I had made him cry laughing on more than one occasion.

Finally he managed to say, 'I still can't tell if you're serious or not, Carter.'

I scrunched up my nose in feigned annoyance, even though he obviously couldn't see me. 'When am I ever not serious, Rudland? Is it so hard to believe that all I want is some sex? And better you than anyone to have it with, I think.'

I was momentarily distracted by a scathing look from a woman who walked past me, her eyebrows raised in disgust at having overheard my end of the conversation. I raised my eyebrows right back at her, staring her down until she had turned round the corner, daring her to say something before she vanished out of my line of sight.