Had to do some stupid MTV interview I'd completely forgotten about so was completely unprepared for it-- NYC obviously has amazing clubs and I'd hopped about a couple of ‘em the night before/early the morning of-- woke up to an awful rapping on the hotel door, knew how hung over I was from the headache that split through my skull at the sound. Had a line and half a val and was chugging fucking Pedialyte in the back of a limo; had no time for a change of clothes. What I had on was what I had on last night, cleaned as well as I could within time limits, everything else covered up with a couple extra sprays of cologne.
Nate and Jeff were there too, tho we arrived separately (my lateness fucking with things), and it was a good thing they were there, because I couldn't get anything to feel quite real. It felt like I was sitting watching TV, or like there was a slight delay on everything, like I was watching myself talk. Hoping I was at least somewhat coherent. They were asking mostly the same stupid questions anyway. It's hard to tell whether the guys are worried about me or not. Jeff would be worried about me anyway. He likes worrying about me. It makes him feel good, I think.
Nate was already living fast, so he might just see this as me catching up with him. In other words, he might've just thought I was drunk or high on something. Does half a valium count as high on something (speed doesn’t count, that’s just baseline)? I hope it reads as something like that, because as undignified as that is, it's still likely better than the reality of it just being my head, in spite of the drugs, or perhaps also somehow made worse at the same time.
I wonder if I'll turn out like Mom at some point. I won't choose chemo if I do. Why the fuck draw it out like that? Why give yourself and everyone around you any sort of false hope? I still wish I understood that decision. I always tried my best to be good for her despite my personal feelings. I wish it didn't anger and frustrate me to think about, still. There were times I'd visit her in the hospital when she was virtually a vegetable and I'd be so tempted to fuck with the electricity of things somehow, literally pull the plug, do something to just fucking END it. And it made me feel so fucking evil but I couldn't help thinking it anyway, because dragging it on like that, suffering for no reason, just also seemed evil to me. Like torture. When a cat or dog or something gets a terminal condition a vet gives it an injection to let it die quickly and peacefully with its owner(s). Humans feel like there's more dignity and virtue in drawing things out. Or at least, a fair number of humans seem to. After seeing far too many people waste away to death, I can't see any fucking dignity in it. Any dignity there is, is clawed at desperately and held as tight as possible by the person dying. It's not the dying itself that gives them that dignity. Dying is UN-dignified. It's humiliating. My friends lost control of their bladders and colons, had to wear fucking diapers in their thirties, and a UTI (or even just a cold) could kill them. But talk to me about dignity. I fucking dare you.
--What was I saying? I don't think Nate's too worried about me. And if I know anybody lead around by their dick more than I am, it's him. Which, really, is more incentive to continue the little thing we started. This is what I’ve been ground to. Again, I can’t blame myself for wanting to enjoy myself where and while I can. Still don’t feel quite real. Oh well. Maybe it is just the val.
She’ll never hear it. Mom’ll never hear it. The album. I couldn’t think about it until now and I still barely can. Just enough to write it.
Even with... everything. I still love her so much. So fucking much. It still hurts. It just makes it hurt in a whole new way, and I can barely think about that either. I need to keep fucking going. I can't think about this.
If there's one thing I learned I have in common with Nate, it's that we both have a part of ourselves that always wants to test our limits, to stand as close to the edge of cliffs as we can without falling in. We're both living for the next rush to come along and sweep us up. Gigs can provide that rush for both of us. He knows more of the specifics now about the rush I get feeling him play and he's been indulging me. Then, after the gig, I've been able, a few more times now, to provide him with a whole other kind of rush.
A couple of those times were just the usual quick handjobs/frotting, but this most recent one was SO fun. Delicious, honestly. In quite a few ways. But yes, he wanted to fuck me-- up the ass. Really he was bugging me about it a little. A scenario that could have made me panic, and it was creeping at the edges of my mind as I tried to think of a solution-- but then I thought of myself in full leather. And I realized I could easily give Nathan what he wanted. With some caveats. --Maybe I got a little too excited. Maybe I was too deep in my Coil fantasies or high enough to slip in and out of them, but I wanted to teach him something. Luckily it turned out well, even without tying his wrists together (glad to have this experience to know I don't need to). I was riding him, facing him, and I let him get close. Quite a few times. The last time, I actually did let him grip my ass and hips and thrust into me awhile, got as close as I could myself in a way Julie would've six years ago or so-- stroking his ego to get him to fuck me harder, pure honey, no vinegar, all he expected and wanted, all he thought he could get from me for nothing, but it was for something this time, because he was doing such a good job with those short bursts for me (he was the one to bring that turn of phrase up, even! Mmm...). Eventually, I still shut it all down again with a hand around his throat, and added his frustration as something to bask in.
He wanted to cum, and he was going to, I was going to allow it of him, but not the way he immediately wanted; fucking doesn’t necessarily mean driving. Lesson #1. And he still had to wait another little while for it-- things are nicer when you have to wait for them or earn them. You learn to savor the anticipation (and not just the anticipation of pain). Lesson #2. He's blown so much of his (and Walter's) cash on cars and houses and gambling and strippers and coke. He's gotten near everything he's wanted when he's wanted it since he was fifteen in exchange for having his career and thus a decent chunk of his life owned-- pardon me, ~managed~-- by some grubby middle-aged pervert (and that is what he is, I don't give a fuck what Nathan thinks, even if I can't tell him so yet). He's fucked up in his own special ways. Jeff always wants to be a good influence for him-- and for me, which is funny.
I guess I've also tried to steer Nate's basic tendencies to conclusions that would help him or down directions that would suit us (and if it’s both, all the better), including now, but now I also feel like I'm truly getting him to start to see me the way I want him to. I mean, I've fucked him, I've ridden him like this. He's absolutely strong enough to wrestle out of anything I do to him, and I know he wouldn't hesitate to do so if he felt the need to. He just did what I said-- whined about it, sassed about it, but also whined in a good way quite a bit, and more as time went on. I’ve had quite a bit of practice at this point with having to prove myself this way, but having to prove it all to Nate is an entirely different thing than proving it to a stranger, or even to Jack. If any nerve showed, I’m thankful it wasn’t noticed by him (he can’t pass up an opportunity to tease).
At some point I felt more like sucking him than getting fucked, and I was high enough that impulses like that are often followed-- I rolled up n' tossed the condom and down I went. He seemed surprised to be enjoying himself as much as he was, and that made it extremely tempting to just finish the both of us that way, sucking him and feeling myself up. Got him right up to the point of cumming, then left him hanging for a couple seconds. Tipped him just barely over the edge with a few licks, pulled away again-- he got out a shuddering "Fuck you, man" thru grit teeth, and I said that he was the one who apparently got so easy from guys playing with his cock that even a little lick could get him off. "Fuck YOU, Raj!!" I was nice after that, tho-- I mean, he was a good boy (or at the very least, and more honestly, made good progress)-- jacked us off together to really finish. And it was hot to watch (and even hotter getting him to suck his cum off my fingers). But yeah-- where was I going with this? --If something makes Nate feel good, turns out he's pretty open-minded regarding the source; surprisingly curious. And he's just been SO fun to play with, so we're both enjoying ourselves in the end. I haven't asked him the questions he's already asked me-- how long has he wanted me like this, in what ways and why. He still seems too nervous for that. This is fun for him, but it's still a guilty pleasure. I poke too much at that and he could just shut down, instead. He needs to get used to me, used to it, to the point where he isn't leaving my room with his tail tucked between his legs at the end of the night. It's amazing for BOTH of us in the moment-- he's not letting it be that way afterwords.
But it's still a relief to have something like this in the midst of everything else-- and it's getting so interesting, now. I truly wasn't sure how far I was going to be able to go with him, and I'm still not, and I’ve still been very careful with him. I know I have to be realistic. I can't jump too quick into things no matter how much I want to. But GOD I want to... well, really, what I want more than anything, what makes everything still worthwhile, is being able to have Nathan the way I had Jack. Fuck, I wanted Nathan like that even when I was fucking WITH Jack, because I'm a terrible fucking person (I know it wasn't only that. I know it was more than that). I wanted him like that before I even knew what the fuck that meant. I wanted him like that when all I had to go off of, all I had to fantasize about, was a fucking motorcycle crash.
Fuck I want to see him tied up and I want to see how bruises and welts look on/in his skin (get the feeling of anticipation just right for him) ugh I just want to fucking bite him. I think about all that and the charge I get from it-- from THINKING about it-- is like the one I got just from feeling him against me naked and hard for the first time, like a ball of energy in my chest dispersing throughout me, sending chills down my spine, my arms dick and legs, up to my head. Like that electric feeling, but stronger than I’ve ever fucking felt it. Not just making him as good a boy as Jack was for me with regards to sex, but really, in all other regards, making him the man Walter never wants him to become (or, maybe, helping him be a man in a different way than how I could help Jack). Continuously making each other better and reaching new heights in ways he'd never be able to dream of now. Cutting all the excess. Getting closer and closer to mutual perfection through and in each other.
Well. I've written it out, now. It's probably utterly ridiculous, but I can't help but drift off into thinking about it more and more. Sometimes it's less drifting off and more being pulled into an undertow and tumbled around in a violent wave. Really, at this point, I can't get it out of my head. I haven't wanted something so badly in such a long time... which is in itself also stupid. I know. And here I am anyway.
PS: "Kinduvva lotta work, huh?" What? "Keepin' yerself all set for gettin' fucked." Well that's just related to Lesson #2, isn't it? The best things take time and maintenance. And that's why we don't fuck like this every single night. "How much have you had to do this shit?" Enough that it doesn't phase me in the least anymore. Just part of a routine. Discipline. Things that'd be helpful for you to learn more of just generally. --And he finally relented at that with a blush and some muttering. HA.
Time for thinking, again, which is rarely good. Ben crossed my mind first, and the thoughts were wistful, almost nostalgic at first, but the anger crept in soon enough. I remember how fucking disappointed I was when I learned he couldn't swim, that he didn't even want to learn. That there were places he couldn't go, wouldn't go, even if it meant losing me, while I was willing to do near-anything for him and I did. The more I think about it, the more I look back, the more I understand that moment as the real burst bubble of our relationship. I may have been too much for him, but he could never be enough for me. (And Nathan, as sexually thrilling as he is-- utterly captivating, ecstatic-- could never be enough for me elsewhere. At least, not in the state he is now. He has quite a bit to prove.)
But what WOULD be enough, really?
When I was a boy, I'd look out at the teenagers and young men doing farm work and I'd dream of making one of them love me so much that he'd save me from my grandfather the next time he tried to beat me; he'd hold me close, yank the belt out of granddad's hand, push him to the ground, tell him exactly how terrible he was, and whisk me and Mom away to some happily-ever-after somewhere as far from the Valley as possible. (And for whatever reason, she never understood why I’d want to leave...)
Then when I was with Lorenzo and even a bit afterwards I'd dream of making a client fall desperately in love with me, willing to do anything to have me beyond just something he pays for, and I'd tell him all about Lorenzo, and simply saving me like some storybook knight or prince wasn't enough anymore-- I'd think of letting Lorenzo go unpunished even in a daydream and a seething anger would gnaw at my gut. So I'd tell him how much I wanted to see Lorenzo hurt for all the evil he’d done, for how much he'd hurt me. Which would end up with the client killing him. Treated as a serious decision even in a fantasy, but in the end he'd love me and trust me and understand just how much that fucking freak hurt me (not to mention how often he’d threatened to kill me), and I'd hold him and watch while he killed Lorenzo with his own gun, and I'd know I was finally free, and I was with a man who truly could and would do anything for me, a REAL fucking man, and it'd turn me on so much and make me feel so electric we'd fuck like crazy against the same wall Lorenzo fucked me up against for the first time at threat of gunpoint years before, and he'd fuck me so good, hard but passionate, caring, real, that it'd wash Lorenzo completely out of me and I'd finally feel clean and whole and real like a curse being broken.
When I'm doing well I don't have fantasies like that. When I'm doing well, when I can convince even myself that I can be good, when I don’t feel his fucking rot in me, I look back at those dreams in horror. I can't believe I could ever think things like that. I never had those sorts of dreams when I was with Rick or Ben. When I hoped I could be with Lou, I didn't need to have those dreams, because he was a man who finally seemed truly, fully willing to give me what I needed-- not only sexually but generally-- who understood more of the less nice parts of me and wasn’t frightened away by them, who cared about me even when I wasn’t playacting some perfectly charming little entertainer or happy-go-lucky fool. When I was with Jack... I suppose that was more complicated. He wasn't the same, and Nathan isn't either. I wanted to take care of Jack. Nathan...
I do have ugly daydreams with him involved. Sometimes. Well... they're beautiful in some ways, and ugly. And very stupid. We kill Walter together. On his stupid fucking boat. Nate holds the gun and I hold him. He needs to REALLY do the honors, and he'd know exactly why he does. Walt would be SO angry the whole time, too, and it would be such an impotent anger, but I know he wouldn't be able to help himself, and the uglier he'd get the less hesitant Nate would be, the more Nate would realize exactly who he allowed to rule his life for more than half his life, and the easier it would all go, because I’d be granting him instant catharsis, and how often does anyone get that chance? Your "father" was a greedy, money-grubbing, blackmailing, racist, hateful, pathetic pig of a man and he wanted to keep you like a prized pet he could let off a leash and show off to his friends every so often before you got too old and “flabby” for him and he could send you off to get made into glue. That's all the life you know. But that's not living, and he never would have let you realize that. He's Lorenzo by other means, and we're doing what I should have done to him to begin with. We're correcting each other's mistakes. We're freeing each other. We're finally getting out of this fucking house together. We're gifting each other life.
When I'm not in the grips of a fantasy like that I can see how much it comes from a place of utter hopelessness and cynicism. A complete lack of faith in god, in goodness, in anything or anyone to save me from what I'm stuck in. Devotion can be beautiful, and most of the time I strive towards its beauty, but when you're as desperate as I've sometimes felt, as I feel now, you can't trust or believe in beauty. You believe in results and anyone and anything that could possibly deliver.
In the end, I know I'll figure something out that's far less morbid than all this. I know, as tired as I am, that I'll still pick myself up somehow, even if it's for the last time. I mean, I escaped Lorenzo all by myself. This'll likely be quite a bit easier than Lorenzo, though also equally less cathartic: it's as simple as biding my time and eventually having Lou do what needs to be done, when the time's right-- something done out of professional duty instead of devotion, regardless of how much I once wished otherwise. The most difficult part of it all is having Walter around, able to fuck with me, 'til then. I'm already on edge enough; having him around is near-unbearable. Which, I suppose, is why I'm thinking thoughts like this to begin with: he was here for a few days in a row recently. I thought I handled it well, and maybe I did, but here I am stewing anyhow.
What I REALLY need is there to be NO time for any of it. But days between dates can be difficult. That's when things get the worst. Just me and my head. For hours. Til I scare myself so much I want to die even more than usual but I'm sitting next to whoever so I have to sit stock still and bite my nails to the quick instead. Or bite the skin of my knuckles-- not enough to break it or anything, juuust enough pressure to hurt after awhile. I don't want to listen to music to drown it out too much-- don't want to ruin an album with the association, or find out another thing I used to like is dust to me now. Can't read on a bus without getting motion-sick (even writing is iffy, but I need SOMEthing). Just have to listen to the stupid sounds of everyone else. --I am extremely uncharitable right now and I know it but writing it means I might not act it-- Of course the stupid sounds of everyone else make me want to smack them all upside the head, but I'm just here chewing on my knuckles writing whatever trying not to go fucking crazy. I hate everyone for different reasons right now and I hate myself the most and it's the most terrible thing but it's been this way for so long, years really, and it's only gotten worse, like some wound that re-opens right before it can heal (gauze sticking to the skin, ripping it off), so I just have to keep staunching it.
God, there really is so little left in me but pain (emotional and physical) and anger and spite and a need to fuck an understanding into Nate, to will something into him in a language he might actually understand, and if I can't do that then to make him keep whimpering for me. At least give me that you fucker. He's sitting next to me and it's driving me crazy I want to stick a hand down his pants, cup his balls, just casually. Squeeze juuuust a little. Even with everyone else around. Especially with everyone else around. I'm clenching my toes I'm chewing on my fucking knuckles.
PS: He asked pretty soon after all this if I was okay, and I noticed that I was in fact making myself bleed-- but it was easy enough to explain away as getting a little too high. Which I probably did, anyway.