Rehearsals going as well as Nate allows them to go. Getting closer and closer to release day. Things are mostly on track. Mostly. Jeffrey's had to help with the paperwork a little again, just dictating it, but the musical side of things is completely done, the engineering side of things is very close to done, and then there's all the publishing things. Walter kept giving me more and more shit to do and I think he thought it was a punishment, which is funny. Like, "now you see what ~I~ have to deal with". Oh boo-hoo! You have to read a bunch of paperwork and use a computer and a typewriter and call a million people on the phone. With drugs (and sometimes Jeff), any amount of paperwork is possible, so fuck you.
Couldn't help but be a pervert and comment on Nathan's... ~physique~. Well, I'm being unfair to myself. I actually asked him very politely how he found the time to work out so much. He flexed in a way I wasn't sure was supposed to intentionally kill me or not while he said "When there's a will there's a way, dude!" God he'll look amazing tied up. Fuck. There's just something about the bulge of muscle against the tautness of rope... the tension, I guess. Anyway, it's easy to fantasize now (well-- I think it's also why I feel like a pervert, now, considering), but at the time I just mentioned that he'd been kind of a scrawny guy 'til around five years back or so. Any inspiration? And he paused, shrugged with a little laugh. "Well, Walt said I'd look better that way. Be put on the cover of magazines and stuff. And it'd be better for me, too. Like, health-wise. And he was right. Right?" And I felt nauseous, at that point. I remembered how much Walter wanted to dictate how I looked, in the beginning. First I was some exotic prettyboy, then I was a little too exotic and had to try and whiten up some, and he floated some stupid workout plan to me, too, and I remember telling him to fuck off, more or less, most of those times. I could take care of my body just fine, thanks (I had Mom and Aunt Roya for that, anyway). Greg said that made me "scrappy". Then again, I also remember Greg telling me how flabby he found himself and how flabby WALT found him. And I was so truly taken aback. He was such a handsome guy and Walt was putting him down like that and he was just TAKING IT.
I really don't know what Walter has over Greg. But Nathan... all I can think is that Walter knew him since he was fifteen. Fifteen. And that year echoes in my mind and fills me with such a dread and I don't know what to do with it or what it fully means. It's strange. I KNOW but I don't. Anyway-- I just said that yeah, it probably was good for his health. "You built up a little bit yourself, huh?" Yeah. Just naturally. From dancing. --I could never dance if I knew Walter was somewhere with me. He was there at the official release party. I felt so sick dancing then. I thought it was just about not wanting to embarrass myself in front of Nate, and it definitely was that, too, but... ugh. I remember five years ago, when he told me I only wanted what was best for the crew because I fantasized about being "passed around by men who did real work (read: rough)". Him policing my every fucking move.
And how the fuck do I even tell Nathan about that. Can I even? Would anything leave my mouth if I opened it? Would my mind just blank as soon as I try? And what the fuck has he said to Nathan over the years, and how do I even begin to try and undo that. How do I tell that to him in a language he understands. How could you even begin to sing it-- I don't think it could be singing. It would be screaming. When he plays guitar it's like he's holding my hand in a nice space away from everything, and that's nice, that's often something I do need these days, but how do you play music like you're trying to take his hand and fucking yank him out of that fucking house? --It was easy to start all this in a bit of a light mood. Thinking about Nate's body out of contexts like this makes that easy. But with this on top of everything... I feel a kind of desperation, an urgency, a banging on glass. And I don't want to feel that. I don't know what to do about it. Nate thinks things are fine. They've been fine for him, for more than fifteen years. I don't want to shatter that for him if he's happy, and for more selfish reasons I just don't want to think about it all too deeply anymore.
Walter hates me in leather. That's something that makes me smile. Jack loves me in it. Maybe Nathan will, too, once he gets to know me that way.
Jack's taught me how to do his shot-- did it a few weeks in a row with his guidance 'til we were confident enough in my ability to do it solo, while he was tied up. I LOVED giving it to him, it turned me on giving it to him– well, that’s something of an understatement. It gave me that sort of electric feeling, that tingling and shooting up and down; that he trusted me with something so intimate and so... sharp, that I could tell that he loved it too... I could’ve kissed every last inch of him. I could hear and feel him tense for a moment, breathe it out, then just a bit later on, a little contented hum, a relaxed sloping of his back, his ass rising up higher, giving himself over completely to me and doing it so happily and eagerly, and he'd already done so with something so much more serious, and-- ugh, I didn't want to put all the medical crap away I just wanted to eat him out then and there, but I got there soon enough (and he'd never had his ass eaten before me doing it that time when we smoked pot, and he didn't think any guy would even want it when he had something more "convenient"-- needless to say I ate the hell out of his ass).
I really wasn’t expecting all this to sexually excite me as much as it did. Again, though, it’s not just sexual… or there’s a deeper level to it, at least; I already loved making him feel like a man through sex as it is, but that’s more metaphorical, in a way. This is so direct– literally making him into more of himself, myself. He’s quite far along in terms of changes, which was obvious to me the day I met him, and part of why he initially attracted me. The more I’ve gotten to know him the more I love things like the scars on his chest, though I also fear telling him that would make him take it the wrong way. It’s less the difference that attracts me about them and more the conviction behind them. It’s so interesting to think of a scar that marks a far more positive kind of dedication… it’s something even more different from the way some doms can see beauty in mine. They’re seeing a beauty in-- creating a beauty from-- an original ugliness. And that's powerful in its own way, but I don’t have to do that with Jack’s scars. That was him doing what the fuck he wanted for HIMSELF and that's a symbol of it. Almost like a price left behind, but hopefully not one he feels badly about. There are far worse ones.
As for the injections– they’re more about maintenance now than anything, but I don’t mind that much. Even the action itself is enjoyable to me. A little penetration before the main event. It would’ve been interesting, sexy in its own way, to have met him, say, right at the moment he smelled right. To have seen and been a part of those more visible changes. But being with him now, taking care of what he’s already made for himself, him entrusting me with such close parts of that care, helping him reach as much of what he wants in himself as we can before things between us have to end… it reminds me that there’s always a little submission in dominance, a little dominance in submission. Nothing’s ever perfectly clean, and I’m not sure I’d want it to be, now. And the hypothetical scenario, as hot as it is to think about, would have made more sense for something long-term, anyway.
There is that sense, though, of wanting to fill up the time we have with as much as I can, because there's not much of it. But then I'm worried that if I do that, it'll make my leaving more painful for him. Which makes me want to pull away earlier. Like weening him off me. But this is the most stable fucking thing in my stupid fucking life. Ugh. --He's going to make so much progress with his voice, at least, before I have to leave, and he already has. That's something that'll stay with him. It might just be difficult no matter what. I just wish I knew how to make it painless.
PS: He told me it was funny that I'm capable of speaking deeper than I typically do-- I demonstrate for him during lessons-- and I told him it was funny that HE was the one to ask ME for voice lessons to begin with. I'm an exemplar of manhood to you, huh? "More like you've been a gay guy for a lot longer than I have". HA! That was a fair point.
Whether work's difficult or not depends on whether Walter's around and whether Nathan's behaving. Thankfully, I only ever have to deal with one problem at a time, but the reason for that makes an anger threaten to surge through me, and I have to WORK with Walter. Especially now. It's all business bullshit, now. At least Lou's around for some of it. That's still awkward, but I did awkwardly apologize to him, and of course he's been completely professional about it. He did ask if I was doing any better, and I was sort of honest. I was better, in some ways. I wasn't going to try anything stupid with him ever again. I don't even fantasize about him anymore. But when I did... ugh. At the time there were days it was all I could think about in my spare moments, which is embarrassing to think about now... it's like-- I don't know. It was like a compulsion. So much was slipping from me and I needed something and he was the most sturdy thing, I think. By a long shot. ...It's more than that, though. I know it. I don't know why or how I know it, but I do, and I wish I knew why. But all there is, is a feeling.
Anyway, Lou isn't always around. Sometimes I have to be around Walter completely on my own. I've been managing, because I have to. I never feel good afterwords. It doesn't matter what he does or doesn't say or do. Every part of me is on fire for awhile and I just have to grin and bear it. When I see him around Nathan I want to fucking kill him and I have to swallow that down too. We need to get out of this fucking house and he doesn't get it yet and I can't leave him behind and I don't know what to do. I want to hold him tight I want to grab him by the shoulders and shake him and scream I want to punch him I want to collapse into him and wail. I meet his gaze when he passes me by (most of the time-- sometimes he stares at me, and I let him, but I don't look back. I need something for myself). I nod close to neutrally. I always hold my breath. Sometimes I realize that I am. Other times I don't until he's gone.
PS: Jeff told me, out of the blue-- well, maybe it wasn't out of the blue. Maybe there was a fire in the news, or something, I can't remember. But he said his school caught fire when he was a kid. He was frozen in his seat and someone had to grab him and run. I wasn't sure exactly what he wanted from telling me that, but I did tell him I was sorry. But I'm around quite a few people who would sit stock still in a burning building.