Red, White & Royal Blue

by Casey McQuiston

“I think it’s that thing when a vampire creates an army of crazed sex waifs and starts his own ruling body,” he says.

As usual, the day guard at the Dirksen Building glares at him as he slides through security. She’s certain he was the one who vandalized the sign outside one particular senator’s office to read BITCH MCCONNELL, but she’ll never prove it.

You are the thistle in the tender and sensitive arse crack of my life.

THEY KNOW, he texts Henry. THEY KNOW I HAVE ROBBED THEM OF FIVE-STAR ACCOMMODATIONS TO SIT IN A CAGE IN MY ROOM, AND THE MINUTE I TURN MY BACK THEY ARE GOING TO FEAST ON MY FLESH.

I think he’s cute, Henry responds. that’s because you can’t hear all the menacing gobbling Yes, famously the most sinister of all animal sounds, the gobble. “You know what, you little shit,” Alex says the second the call connects, “you can hear it for yourself and then tell me how you would handle this—” “Alex?” Henry’s voice sounds scratchy and bewildered across the line. “Have you really rung me at three o’clock in the morning to make me listen to a turkey?”

yo there’s a bond marathon on and did you know your dad was a total babe

“Looking for Orion,” Henry says.

“I fucking knew it,” she says. “Still waters, deep dicking.” “Stop,” he groans. “Prince Henry is a biscuit,” Nora says, “let him sop you up.”

You’ve been wanting him to dick you down forever, right?” Alex almost chokes on his tongue. “What?” Nora looks at him. “Oh, shit. Did you not know that either?

You’re a mad, spiteful, unmitigated demon, and I’m going to kiss you until you forget how to talk.

There are a lot of days when Henry is happy to hear from him and quick to respond, a fast, cutting sense of humor, hungry for Alex’s company and the tangle of thoughts in Alex’s head. But sometimes, he’s taken over by a dark mood, an unusually acerbic wit, strange and vitrified. He’ll withdraw for hours or days, and Alex comes to understand this as grief time, little bouts of depression, or times of “too much.” Henry hates those days completely. Alex wishes he could help, but he doesn’t particularly mind. He’s just as attracted to Henry’s cloudy tempers, the way he comes back from them, and the millions of shades in between. He’s also learned that Henry’s placid demeanor is shattered with the right poking.

He’s starting to understand what swelled in his chest the first time he read about Stonewall, why he ached over the SCOTUS decision in 2015. He starts catching up voraciously in his spare time: Walt Whitman, the Laws of Illinois 1961, The White Night Riot, Paris Is Burning.

He rolls over onto his stomach, considers, and very deliberately says, “Baby.”

I can’t think of a single other way to start this email except to say, and I do hope you will forgive both my language and my utter lack of restraint: You are so fucking beautiful.

Listen: I’ll fly to London right now and pull you out of whatever pointless meeting you’re in and make you admit how much you love it when I call you “baby.” I’ll take you apart with my teeth, sweetheart.

So, to borrow a passage from Sense and Sensibility: “You want nothing but patience—or give it a more fascinating name, call it hope.” To paraphrase: I hope to see you put your green American money where your filthy mouth is soon.

The way you speak sometimes is like sugar spilling out of a bag with a hole in the bottom.

The truth is I am an unlucky honest man, that speak my sentiments to all and with emphasis. I say this to you because you know it and will not charge me with vanity. I hate Congress—I hate the army—I hate the world—I hate myself. The whole is a mass of fools and knaves; I could almost except you …

The phrase “see attached bibliography” is the single sexiest thing you have ever written to me.

I just want to … you know. Extend the option. If you wanted less of me, and more of that—the work, the uncomplicated things—I would understand. Truly.

Should I tell you that when we’re apart, your body comes back to me in dreams? That when I sleep, I see you, the dip of your waist, the freckle above your hip, and when I wake up in the morning, it feels like I’ve just been with you, the phantom touch of your hand on the back of my neck fresh and not imagined? That I can feel your skin against mine, and it makes every bone in my body ache? That, for a few moments, I can hold my breath and be back there with you, in a dream, in a thousand rooms, nowhere at all?

You engross my thoughts too intirely to allow me to think of any thing else—you not only employ my mind all day; but you intrude upon my sleep. I meet you in every dream—and when I wake I cannot close my eyes again for ruminating on your sweetness.

Tho I long for the actual sunlight contact between us I miss you like a home. Shine back honey & think of me.

Here lies Prince Henry of Wales. He died as he lived: avoiding plans and sucking cock.

It is true that I have my young king who genuinely adores me. You cannot form an idea of our relations. I recall one of the dreams of my youth. I once dreamed that Shakespeare was alive: that I really saw and spoke to him: I can never forget the impression that dream made on me. Then I would have wished to see Beethoven, though he was already dead. Something of the same kind must pass in the mind of this lovable man when with me. He says he can hardly believe that he really possesses me. None can read without astonishment, without enchantment, the letters he writes to me.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for having saved me. I was drowning and you threw yourself into the water without hesitation, without a backward look.

boy”—here, a nasty lilt to her polite tone, under which Alex can hear epithets for everything from his race to his sexuality—