Hamartia

by Scarlett Drake

He’d given me a look. A look that shifted something inside me in a way that all those separate parts that made up the whole changed imperceptibly. So that they didn’t fit back the way they were supposed to. Like I no longer fit inside myself. That’s how I’d come to describe it. That was the power of that shift. The power of him. I was like a stranger to my own fucking soul.

“Is this what you need?” Jaehyun says, his voice a whispered dream. His eyes are dark and hot and filled with lust. A surge of pressure pounds against my dick. “Yes…fuck, yes,” I groan, dropping my head back onto his shoulder. “Say it, Raphael…tell me what you want.” “Your mouth, your hands, you…”

“Are you trying to say that you want to fuck me, Raphael?” He says it in that same soft voice and this time my stomach does drop out of my ass.

“I do not want to be your friend, Raphael. I do not want to watch sunrises and think of you. I do not want to close my eyes to go to sleep and see the image of your mouth when you smile. I do not want to spend a five-hour flight daydreaming about your eyes or the sound of your voice or the way you say my name. I do not want it. And yet… all of these things I have done just today.”

“I want you. I don’t know what this is but I haven’t been able to think in a straight line since I saw you and it’s driving me insane. I want…to touch you, breathe you in, kiss you, taste you, and I don’t know what any of it means. It’s…it’s like I’m fucking obsessed. I feel obsessed. Have you ever been obsessed with anything? Ever wanted something so much it makes every breath you have to take without it, pointless?”

“I told you, I’m here because I want you. Because if I don’t get to have you at least once I’m gonna lose my fucking mind.” Maybe I could have gone with something more poetic, something like I’m here because I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you for two and a half years. Because I’ve never wanted to touch and be touched by another person as much as I want to touch and be touched by you. Because just looking at you feels like I’m drowning, and I like that feeling more than I should.

Why am I fully prepared to move to another continent and learn a language that may as well be spoken with a different body part. It’s ridiculous. We hadn’t even fucked. A blowjob and a hand job and I’m ready to change citizenship.

“You don’t like dude? I can find something else to call you.” I move toward him slowly. “What else would you call me?” I study him as I get closer. His lean body and sharp elegant features, his high cheekbones and pretty mouth. Then I think about how he moves. Graceful and fluid. Precise and smooth. I almost don’t say it because it’s too fucking cheesy. But then I think about how he might smile at me if I do and so I can’t not say it. “Kitten?”

“Dangsin-eun na-ege neomu keun sangcheoleul jul geos-ibnida. an geulae?” Jae whispers.

“Play what?” “Your second gift.” I give him an embarrassed smile as I lean over to take a deep gulp of my wine. “I might have sort of wrote you a song.” His eyes light up brighter than the Christmas tree as he settles himself back on the sofa and sips his own wine. “Oh, this will be very good. Please tell me you will sing about my asshole.” I splutter out a laugh as I sit my glass back down. “That’s actually the title.”

“Love cannot bloom hidden away in the shadows, Raphael. Eventually it will wither and die. It would not be fair to offer you a love like that, one that is half in the dark and dying from the start. You deserve something better than what I can give you.” “And what about what you deserve? You deserve to be fucking loved too. And I would do that, I would love you enough for fucking both of us, okay? Just…let me…”

“I love you too,” I whisper to no one. “In another life I would have chosen you.”