Terrible

If I asked him now, if only a moment, to think of me not as a friend but as a potential lover, would he still be sitting here, watching my face, watching my body, to see how it moves oh so slightly at the simplest of things he does: the way he takes his hand to the glass lifting it to his lips, drinking that wine we are sharing in order to get ourselves drunk enough to fuck. He’s seemingly not too scared to flirt a little with danger here. He’s not scared to blur the signals, to make his intentions unclear. Is this love or is this seduction? I talk to him about pain. The real genuine physical kind. He’s not convinced. So I begin to speak to him as if he and I were about to enact a particularly imprecise ritual. Something I might make up to make things a little more interesting. To see where this night might go. For example, I would place his body, not so gently, against the floor, arching his head back at an uncomfortable angle. Do I want to hurt him? Am I preparing myself to be hurt? Would I like to gaurantee that, this time, I will be the one inflicting the blows? What will either of us make of a scene that involves me pouring an entire bottle of red wine over his face, so as to make the liquid trickle into his nostrils, to the point of choking, to the point of suffocation or drowning. And, of course, for dramatic effect, I would smash the bottle near his head, just to make him understand that this is no game. The rules have been set. And remember, I will be the one setting them. Because, here, tonight, he and I have already drunk so much that I will want to hear some answers. I will want to hear the terrible truth. I will want to know that I am never going to get the chance to inflict any kind of pain on this man because he knows, when he looks into my eyes, that to invite someone like me in (like welcoming in the vampire into his home) is to risk the chance of losing his way a little in the darkness. Cos right now, he and I have some pretty serious ambiguity going here. He’s letting me stay around but I am unsure as for how long. But he’s not telling me to leave either. Listen man, you might as well give me the spare key. You might as well let me hang out during the day and trawl through your porn collection. You might as well add my name to the message on your answering machine. Cos I’ve moved in. And I’m not going anywhere. Believe me, I’m not playing.

JASON