*

"The world is in pain/and should be put down/and God is a SADIST/and that He knows it"

Pop music's boring me nearly as much as rock at this point but a guy I fucked put something on in the beginning that shocked me a little at first. Not in a bad way, just unexpected (and not just because it was far from your typical sex music-- it's SM, it's usually not the smooth jazz station): the unapologetic dissonance, a sort of demented carnival effect over harsh martial drum machine beats and barked out lyrics, and then-- anal WHAT? "Staircase!", the guy shouted over the music with a laugh.

Some of the other songs could be just as dissonant or harsh as that one if not more, or avant-garde in other ways, while some were more hauntingly morbid. At times it was hard to pay full attention to what I was doing, and at one point early on I had to admit that to him. The music was just so DIFFERENT and so purposefully ugly in that fascinating way I've come to appreciate more and more as the years go by, and having to fuck to it, even in a more extreme way, was a lot. Asked him if it would be better for the both of us to either turn it off or listen to the entire thing before really fucking. Ended up doing the latter (happily surprised a stranger had the patience for such a thing, but he was clearly a fan-- of Coil, that is). He told me it was a tape from England from this group Coil. Just released. Horse Rotorvator is the title.

Listening to it in full once really was the right call, too; having an idea of the ups and downs, highs and lows, what rhythms I could hit and whip and fuck him to, when things would be harsh or manic, when things would be haunting, a quiet simmering despairing anger, a murdered run-over corpse rotting in a ditch, a dangerous stranger stalking you in the night, a whispered secret of dark hungers in dark alleyways or dark edges of towns[97]... I could embody them all to a degree, perform them and evoke them in my own way and Lorenzo or anyone else didn't threaten to sneak in, I could please and torture and please through torturing and torture through pleasing or the suggestion of pleasure held out dangled out just far enough away to not be reachable but just close enough that he couldn't help but anticipate, reach out for anyway, struggle in so many wonderful ways, reach the perfect point of desperation I’m always holding out for, where he would do anything for it, do anything for me (and did quite a bit). Such a good boy. And I a good enough Master-for-a-night that I got the Horse Rotorvator tape at the end of it all.

It's all I can listen to lately, which makes me feel like a freak in a whole new way, but at this point I think I'm just collecting ways to be a freak. I can't quite call it a breath of fresh air because it often evokes a sense of drowning or panic in me, but instead of panicking alongside it I can lean into the feeling of the music to ride it out. They're also gay-- the group, that is. The lyrics make it obvious, and I'm proud on their behalf of the audacity of it, the fuck-you of it, how ANGRILY gay it is, the fact that they got a label to release it regardless (certainly pretentious at times, too, but that’s English boys for you). Francis Bacon's gay as well. Beauty in ugliness seems to be something we're drawn to; I in spite of many desperate attempts to avoid it… it’s like it keeps finding me, daring me to look it in the eye, while everything and everyone in my professional life would want me very much to look away.

When you're made to feel ugly and/or freakish, I suppose you have to find the beauty in it somewhere if you don't want to just let yourself get browbeaten into humiliating submission because of it. Owning it's always better. I feel life's been trying to teach me that lesson for quite some time and I was too afraid of it to accept it. Too afraid to reach out and take what's fucking mine. The very idea of it making me tense, cringe, want to curl up tight into a ball. What would it look like if I vomited out all my ugliness on tape? What would it sound like? Would anyone even want to hear? Would I want anyone to hear? Half of me is tempted to try and the other half of me is still curled up like a coward and I can't uncurl him (images of Mom recoiling from the deviant monster she wanted to scrub out of me and I tried to scrub out for her; memories of past shocked and despairing admonishments, what happened to my sweet boy, my cute boy, the one that sang his father's favorite showtunes before holiday or feast day dinners and gave deep bows to polite applause, the one that woke up bright and early to dutifully head to choir practice before Church, the one that opened the door without hesitation, what happened to my darling angel what happened to him, why does he want his Mother to suffer).

There's a far more stupid part of me that wants to fuck Nate to it, wants him to fully understand, to get it, to get me, to see me and my ugliness in full and get swallowed up and spit out by it and still want more, want me, when all's said and done. Or at least, and less stupid, if he has to see me as any sort of angelic, if all our years together have affected how he sees me too much to see anything else, then I want it to be the sort of angel with a sword plunged in something's neck. To look at me like that. To be that for him.

Maybe that's why I'm still stalling. I still don't know if I can have him, if I can REALLY have him, or if he'll just try to take me instead. I'm afraid that if he does try, I won't be able to stay in the present, I won't be able to pin him back and keep him there, I'll just crumple. I can't fucking crumple. Or hesitate. Or anything. I have to be ready for anything and able to take whatever comes.

[lil author's note: horse rotorvator wasn't released in england until september '86, so who tf knows when the first ppl in the US got around to listening to it. this is probably the most i stretch little history things for the sake of the story lol]

*

I still can't really believe what I've gotten away with here or what Nate allowed me to get away with. I admittedly never thought I'd actually get this. Not even a fucking chance of having this. I talked myself out of even wanting it for so fucking long because of how utterly out of the question it was for so long, and then I just didn't feel worthy of it, like I could ever convince him of it, convince him of ME--

I did have some hope, of course, or I wouldn't have gotten as far as I have to begin with. Even more hope, though-- really, a surge of excitement-- after watching him trot out on stage ahead of me in those jeans. He still might not know exactly what he's doing, but he already knew enough. The entire show felt like foreplay. I mean, I couldn't tip too far into any of the directions I wanted to tip in, but the place we were floating in together (and us, only us, not Jeffrey, not anyone else) was so heady, so beautiful but in such a hungry way... and we somehow were able to go on like (hopefully mostly) normal. Gabe said we did amazing. I believed him, but I was only half-there listening to him. I knew what I wanted. I wasn't going to let my own nerves get in the way. The bike crash would be erotic, not embarrassing.

So as soon as all our business wrapped up for the night I threw my leather jacket back on, fixed my hair back up some, took a deep breath, let my tunnel vision lead me right to him. And I did tease him, some, first (while looking at him fully, that more immediate wanting look)-- so, you DO know a little what you're doing, now. Good. And he let out a laugh as he leaned close next to me. "I mean, we got a lot pent up, right?" Oh, you have no idea. You might think you do. You don't. And I couldn't help but stroke that little hint of skin, that slice of ass, and I couldn't help but feel it all start to rush downward, and I wanted to push him close to me again, press myself to him-- fuck it, I wanted to, I DID (something I'm trying to be more and more comfortable with; I need to with him). And I kissed one side of his neck, licked it while I ran one of my hands up the other side of it, into his hair, sunk my teeth into it ever so slightly (and I could hear and feel him sigh out, relax a bit into me), breathed him in fully enough to nearly get drunk off it, and I asked him-- are you sure you want this, Nathan? "I wanna try whatever the fuck's got you lookin' at me like that this past fuckin' year." You like that kind of attention, do you? "Fuck, I guess so.", He said it with another little laugh, almost an embarrassed one, and a brief but hard kiss on the lips. And I told him-- by the end of this I hope you'll know so. "Try me." GOD.

And OBVIOUSLY I did-- try him, that is. In quite a few ways... not nearly close to the full extent of my fantasies with him, of course, but there was still such a rush to fucking him, to having him, to feeling him as much I was able to. Every single step was its own thrill, and beyond that, I couldn't take the reality of getting to kiss and smell and feel (and even just see) the entirety of his body for granted. UGH he's so fucking beautiful and he smells so fucking good it's almost unfair. As soon as I got the last of his clothes off and we were against each other and I could run a hand across his chest and thumb one of his tits I felt such a deep charge (and then feeling his cock pulse against me, next to mine... ugh god, I couldn't help but moan out his name and kiss him and he laughed at me for it but I could barely bring myself to care. It's better to get it all out now, anyway)...

Now that I've done it, I truly doubt I could have fucked him before a year or so ago-- I wasn't quite sure how to be convincing in that sort of way, didn't have that kind of confidence yet and still barely do, and not being confident around Nate is always a mistake-- and imagining fucking him (and domming him, but first things first) was what finally made wanting him fully comprehensible to me. It made it so easy, in that moment, to know how to feel his body, how to make him feel good enough at every step of the way for him to want to take the next step with me, but with just enough of a figurative hand around the neck to keep him on his toes and remind him of his place in it all. There was a tipping point somewhere, when I was playing with his ass (careful as everything else[98]), that I felt all tension leave his body, felt him relax and open up, where he just completely gave in with a little whimpered "holy shit, what the FUCK, Raj"-- I was so excited to fuck him but still had to be so careful, had to treat even the first knuckle of a pinky finger like the big deal it was for him, but thankfully it never got boring for either of us. I was impatient, but it was as pleasant an impatience as could be imagined (especially once it was clear he was just as impatient as I was... then it really got fun to play with).

I fucked him slow out of necessity, but like the impatience, it wasn’t an unpleasant necessity. He had to really FEEL things, grasp a better and better understanding of what he felt and why, get an idea of what was most pleasurable to him specifically, and being the one to teach him the beginnings of both the practicalities and the poetics of it all felt even more right than I expected it would. More than that, it’s a part of Nate that’ll always belong to me, to the two of us, that Walter can never have. No matter what else happens.

--UGH what else can I talk about now except for the way he leaned his head back, tried so hard not to make a sound when I entered him[99]... In missionary, too, to begin and end with (with various things in the middle~): I needed him to look in my eyes when I did it-- didn't want to hand him of all people an easy way out of just burying his face into a pillow or mattress, didn't want him to be able to hide from or forget or laugh off what he wanted and who was giving it to him now that I'd gotten him to not drink it away-- and I did get such a wonderful look before he leaned back, and then I was just able to suck on his neck anyway and he loved that. Even remembering it all now-- the feeling of my fingers combing through all his curls, how they felt against my face, the taste and smell of his pits (GOD, how they LOOK, even, how the fuck was I supposed to decide between stuffing my face there or in his hair), being able to see and feel his muscles work, how incredible he felt around me, feeling him open up more and more for me, little moans rumbling against my lips[100], getting louder and higher pitched the faster and more rhythmically I could fuck him, pushing me into him with a leg against my ass, those strong arms and hands around my back, gripping me, the perfect blissed-out shock of his orgasm[101], his cum all over my hand and his chest... fuck, it's all driving me crazy (and yes, I am shamelessly writing all this in detail; who wouldn’t want to remember how it felt fucking a guy with a body like THAT, first of all, but even more, just the fact that it’s him. What the fuck). Just knowing I can already fucking do that to him, what a strange miracle it was to have the chance to try to begin with. And then anticipating the next time... I'm pretty damn sure there'll be a next time.

He asked me afterwards if I'd always wanted to do something like this with him, and I was honest-- that I hadn't seriously considered him in any sexual way for most of our time together. Or maybe I just hadn’t allowed myself to. It had never been a good time; it never made sense. Admitted that by '81 the wires got close, but still didn't quite touch until the following year. And by that point, I was fully emotionally committed to someone else-- just not the person he’d assumed at the time. Plus, I always figured him for straight. Only doing things with me drunk didn't help me think otherwise.

"Yeah, and Greg had a girl most of the time you knew him." I understood the implication immediately and couldn't help but laugh out loud at it. I said-- you thought he was straight? Did he ever tell you about all the guys he'd blow at truck stops on the road? Maybe he only told me because he liked blowing me at truck stops, too. You can tell Walt that, too, if you'd like, and he can add that to his little oppositional research collection. I hope Greg's marriage is doing well. I hope he's feeling fulfilled. "Fuck, man, you can be such a fucking bitch. It always blows my mind. Like, you can be such a fun dude sometimes! But you can never fuckin' help yourself. It's like you're not happy unless you find a knife somewhere you can twist." What a poetic turn of phrase for you! You must've been hanging around and getting English lessons from Jeff recently, huh. "There you fuckin' go again!! I knew you were gonna get so fuckin' smug 'cause of this, man; CHRIST you drive me nuts." Oh, I know. But you've driven me crazy plenty over the years, in various ways. And either way, you still like it. My kind of lessons are a lot more interesting than Jeffrey's ever could be.

Anyway. Telling him he liked that I drove him crazy was primarily more teasing, but it's still true (and it's nice to know that it's mutual...). He used to always put up such a big front of disgust and discomfort whenever I was at my most bitch-queen[102], but he opened up for me so well there, stayed hard even with all the blow, made the most lovely sounds for me. I used to let his insecurities drag me down into my own far too easily. Too much of me was stuck in high school, clenching up, barely breathing whenever some football asshole walked by, ready to run or duck away somewhere, anticipating the beating, the feeling of my head slamming against a locker door and reeling. Like my inner fifteen year old reacting to his inner fifteen year old. Like the early days with Lorenzo, too-- assuming my own weakness, assuming the other is automatically in an immovable position of strength over me because I got used to being beaten 'til my back was black and blue for daring to assume otherwise. I've gotten better, now, at stopping myself from automatically flinching like that. I don't want to start off on the back foot if I can help it. And I have a sway of a kind with both Jeff and Nate now and I've never had to do any sort of blackmailing for it. Walt's a blunt instrument. Everyone's a nail to be hammered down or a tool to be used to generate profits. I know it's not that simple.

--Ugh, it's already three again. My body always makes me sleep at least a few hours, even when my mind's racing like this. I miss the time I could go DAYS without it. I never liked sleep. I always want to keep one eye and ear open. There were times with Ben where I might’ve only gotten a single hour of sleep in a night, but having him in my arms, always out like a light within minutes, filled my heart. Even if I couldn't fully relax, I could make him feel safe enough to drift off like a baby. I never took that for granted. I always wanted to make him feel that safe and loved and precious. Walt's a blunt instrument and that doesn't work for everything, but he still took that from my life. Even if I make him regret it, I can never get it back. It does make the idea of charming his favorite son even more appealing, though-- to take something that big from him. At the same time… it’s not just about that. I know I like Nathan for more than that, and I want him for more than that. I’m just not sure what’s more important right now.

PS: I seem to recall that I'd promised Greg right from the very beginning-- and he made me swear on it-- that I'd never tell anyone in or around the band about anything we did together, and I upheld that promise ‘til now. But he apparently talked to Nate about us? Interesting! Then again, the set of rules that I've had to abide by were never ones he had to worry about, and that was true for everything, and he never cared and he resented that I did (I still think he thinks I called meetings just for fun, or just to fuck with him, or because I'm just that enamored with meetings). He was either going to keep his place on the totem pole or bail rather than give a leg-up to a guy who’d given him so much already. Fucker. Of course, it's something I have to worry about with Nathan as well, technically. *Technically*. But will he really want to admit to anyone he got fucked in the ass by Jules Riley? There are quite a few reasons to do things how I'm doing them... the fact that they're as pleasurable as they are is almost a bonus.

PPS: He either didn't notice my scars or didn't say anything about them. It MUST be the former, he absolutely wouldn't be able to keep his mouth shut if he actually saw them. UGH what'll I do if he does... Gotta give him enough else to think about so he doesn't even think to look, I guess.

*

Hanging around the crew without Ben is like constant little needles in my heart. I'm still trying. I mean, they're all still doing such incredible work, and I do still care about all of them. I want them to do well, I've tried my best to ensure that they do well, and so far it seems they are. I just don't really know how to act around them anymore, is the thing. It's like a less extreme form of going back to La Rosa after everything with Rick. Benny had been such a part of everything. And I really can't blame them if they blame me for his absence-- I’d been trying to make things as good as possible for the both of us personally and for everyone generally, but it’s easy to see how it looked or simply ended up as selfish. I don’t know. I saw a way out and was impatient to grab it whether he was ready or not. *I* was, finally, and I didn't want anything or anyone to get in the way of that after so long being stuck in that fucking house and it's like he just wanted me to fucking stay there and I still don't fully understand.

Anyway. Some of them feel bad for me and it's been hard to take that but I'm trying there, too. It all pulls me back to things I don’t have connections to anymore, and then it all just reminds me of that absence. It feels like I'm putting on a mask of myself. A shade of Julie. If there's anyone I don't want to get hurt any more because of me, or just in general, it's them. I've never lost any respect for them-- if anything, I know a lot of them have likely lost respect for me. Or I was just tolerated because I was with Ben, more than anything. I don't mind much, though-- I'm not here for long anyway. As long as they trust Eoin and Marty, it's fine.

Performing with Nate already feels different for me-- I haven't asked him if it feels different for him yet. Maybe I'm just less shy about fully letting myself feel the sex in his playing when it's there. I think it's more than that, though... my singing and his playing have always connected on a level that confused and frustrated me, even though it was (and is) wonderful to work with. We already had that place we could go with each other the way I had with Rick-- it just wasn't consistent. As strong as that connection already was, it feels stronger now, more instinctual; I can feel it around and inside of me almost the way I always dreamed of even if my body, my hands, aren't literally holding his. I guess I’m just not fighting against it at all anymore. It's made singing easier again, even if it isn't perfect-- it isn't perfect, but he still gets me closer to it. I like that (that he brings me closer to perfection, that it's him doing it in particular, etc). It almost excites me in some ways, but I don't allow myself the full feeling of the excitement. I fucked him once-- whatever. Enjoyable in quite a few ways, and entertaining, interesting, but I know if I allow myself full excitement my mind'll explode with thousands of what-ifs I don't want to deal with right now when things are as uncertain as they are.

Honestly, I'm thinking about him a little too much already as it is. I go out and fuck enough other guys, some truly beautiful ones, or ones with particularly nice length/shape/girth/curve/hang, or ones with beautiful strong round asses and holes so clean and tight they're practically begging for my tongue to slide over and around and in and open them up (I've fingered them and licked/sucked/bit a cheek instead and that’s still so hot but FUCK it's still not the same-- sucking a pit’s better, obviously wonderful but still more its own thing), or ones with hair nearly as nice as his in various other colors, or ones with even nicer thicker chest hair or back/ass hair, ones that smell just as good but in different ways, ones that are far more experienced and skilled at the kind of sex I want than he is, ones that are already masochists or submissives and can take even more than I could ever dream to currently give them, and I can remember those things later and feel myself up to them and I do. And eventually, my mind wanders over to Nate somehow no matter what, he replaces whatever other man was there originally, and the feeling that shoots through me is just... ugh. He's almost always what I end up cumming to. I'm not sure if he knows exactly what he does to me. I don't think he could. I hate it. I can't help but love it, too, though, and that's part of why I hate it. And that's why I can't let myself get fully excited.

*

[97]Slur was just the second song but it was the one that made me realize I had to stop all I was doing to listen: I don’t know how they know what cruising/working in and around those Valley towns is like– those desolate truck stops and bars and alleys between maddeningly long stretches of dust and plains and NOTHING; I couldn’t believe it, there was a shock but also an odd kind of relief.

[98]I did have to tease him, at one point, about how small that ass is. So much of him is built up and not his ass? Skipping leg day? Or just the squats? Come on now. Are you really that shy about it? You're not shy at all with what you've got up front... and ugh, being able to feel that cock, suck it once he was good enough of a boy to earn it; to wrap my hand around it and jack him off while I fucked him, tease him about how much he probably wanted to fuck me with it and here I was milking it instead and you like that, don't you, Nathan-- and he was still too shy to answer with a real yes, but even the grit-teeth trembling "FUCK, Raj--" he gave me made me want to slap that little ass of his so hard it'd still be red the next day. I somehow managed to keep that to myself. For now.

[99]Unsuccessfully, which I of course couldn’t leave unspoken at the time– what he didn’t have to know was that I was so excited, and he felt so damn good, that it was difficult for me not to make a sound myself. Fuck I could barely breathe.

[100]His stubble against my cheek, my lips, my tongue– I could tell he’d forgotten to shave that morning; he fills in quickly. I love that I know that about him, and other small things accumulated over the years, and what’s more he looks SO sexy like that and I had to tell him so.

[101]The little “what the fuck”s he whimpered out with each pulse of mine inside him– me with my face and a hand in his hair (I suppose I could decide between pit and hair after all!), lost in my own bliss, I KNEW it’d make me cum and cum hard.

[102]An even bigger front when Jeff was around, naturally; heaven forbid he embarrass himself with his choice of company in front of his new friend.