Silver-tongued lawyer Linus Twist has expensive tastes. The sharpest suits, the purest drugs, and the dirtiest sex. Linus wants it all in excess, especially the sex, and especially with the wrong types of men. So when he impetuously follows a foxy r...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Linus props himself up on pillows as the sun filters through the first day of the new decade. His limbs are heavy, his eyelids paper-thin, his throat green. The roar of the ocean is barely distinguishable from the pounding of blood in his temples.
Izal moves around the hotel suite, fresh out of the shower. Obsidian hair, knotted to reveal a swan neck, a white towel to hide slim, brown hips, and a delicate mouth that won't shut up. Linus knows that tone, and Linus couldn't be arsed about it.
He yawns and stretches. His jaw pops. Another sleepless night, not that he expected anything else given the drug of choice. Still, it would've been nice to get some rest. Linus's doctor has assured him that insomnia will kill him way before the stress does.
"Are you listening to me?"
Linus doesn't bother to respond.
"God, such a selfish dick," Izal says, turning on Linus, hands on his hips. Linus used to associate words like caramel, cinnamon, and gingerbread with Izal. But when was the last time he saw anything but cold calculation in those upturned, hazel eyes?
"That's not very nice. I reckon this dick's been quite generous." Linus winds him up like a plaything. Room service sounds lovely. Maybe he'll even eat some of it.
"You call leaving me tied to the bed generous? You call returning with your come all over another man's face generous? What about not being able to get it up after, was that generous?"
"Poor Izal." To be fair, Linus had fucked him with a toy afterward, until Izal had convulsed and begged and shot all over the headboard. And again this morning, when Linus woke up with Izal's mouth hollowed around him.
Izal, as usual, had something to prove, some continuing power imbalance with Bennett to rectify. Linus had long ago realized that, whatever was going on between the two, it wasn't about him.
Mouths can be interchangeable when the intention behind them is the same.
"You're punishing me, Linus, for having perfectly reasonable expectations."
It's an old argument. But now, Linus gets to have a new response.
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the whole point of you seeing another man was so I wouldn't have to deal with your perfectly reasonable expectations," Linus says.
Izal goes stone still.
And there's a moment, maybe a millisecond, in which Linus sees Izal make a decision.
"I'm marrying him," Izal says.
Linus opens his mouth, closes it. Laughs.
Izal crosses his arms over his chest, digs his heels in.
"You're fuckin' kidding me," Linus says, low and cold.
"I'm marrying him. He asked, and I said yes."
Linus has questions.
First: Was this romantic meeting of the minds before or after Izal showed up, thirty minutes to midnight, with that look in his eyes that said, I need you, Linus?
It's the look that appeals directly to Linus's ego, to his desire to protect and keep. A weakness that Izal exploits with brutal efficiency and lethal glee.
Second: Is Izal marrying for love or retribution?
Six months ago, Izal had kindly requested an open relationship. Linus, weary of the constant hostility and emotional blackmail, had agreed. Izal, in turn, had broken every glass in the kitchen cabinet.
When the dust settled, Linus had expected Izal to resentfully take up with a revolving door of partners, just the way Linus had. Linus had not expected Izal to procure for himself a bloody fucking fiancé.
Which leads Linus to the third question: Does Izal expect Linus to keep fucking him when there's another man's ring on Izal's finger?
Does Linus?
"No," Linus says.
"I am. And this, you and me, this shit is over. I'm so fucking tired, Linus. I am exhausted of how you make me hate myself," Izal says.
"Well, maybe if you weren't so fucking loathsome to begin with," Linus responds. It's the wrong thing to say. Or maybe it's the right thing, because Izal cracks. He howls like a banshee and flings himself at Linus.
Linus dodges the fist but catches the rest of him. Izal's towel comes undone, his hair escapes the top knot, unfurls like black flames around his flushed face. Izal screams bloody murder into Linus's face and Linus wonders when Izal's hair got so bloody long. Izal rakes his fingernails down Linus's arms and Linus thinks about how good the pain feels. How the honesty was even better.
Linus has Izal face down on the bed before either of them even knows it. He recognizes the hand on the small of Izal's back as his own only by the rings on his fingers.
No, not like this.
Linus jerks away, but Izal reaches back and grabs his hips, fingers digging in hard. Hard enough to bruise.
The fog lifts and Linus looks at Izal. At the tears in his eyes. At the strands of damp, black hair snaking across the white bedsheets. At the way Izal's mouth contorts with words he's not going to let himself say. Not this time. Izal doesn't need to. Linus knows what those words are, has heard them plenty of times.
I need you to fuck me. Need you to make me forget how fucked you are.
Of course. Of course, it has to be like this. Linus will take the blame and the torment, too. He'll ease his spine and remind himself to breathe, as he turns all this, this anguish, into a rough fuck and a proper end.
It's how he's always shown his devotion, how he's always dealt with endings.
"You're sure?" Linus asks, because if he's going to do all of that, then the least Izal can do is say that he wants it.
Izal takes a broken breath. "Just shut the fuck up and do it, Linus."
Good enough. As Linus slides on a condom and reaches for the lube, he can't help but wonder if there might be another way—one in which pain doesn't beget more pain. It's a shame that this is the only language in which they are fluent.
It's brutal.
Nasty and silent and dispassionate. By the time Linus slips out of Izal, flaccid and unspent, they both know it's over.
Linus resumes his position on the pillows and fixes his hair before tying off the condom. He watches as Izal cleans himself and sniffles, red nose and redder eyes on the growing wet spot he's left behind. On his things scattered about, on the turquoise ocean beyond.
On everything but Linus.
It bothers Linus, but he doesn't say anything. Instead, he marvels at the dedication and expertise Izal has shown in playing at intimacy with one man while fucking the other over. Despite what Izal has to say about Linus's inability to connect emotionally, Linus doesn't quite know which man he is in this equation.
As it turns out, Linus, too, might be interchangeable. The symmetry makes Linus smile.
Still, the lack of eye contact continues to irritate. Surely, so much tender time, so much exquisite manipulationdeserves a proper goodbye? Izal ties up his hair and packs up the black leather weekender Linus gifted him last year.
