*

Things as tense as I expected around Walter. Still haven't told Nathan much about him, but he has noticed how uncomfortable I've been around him, because it's hard for me to hide anything these days. Everything's just one step below the surface. That's the best I can do. I did tell Nate I don't feel comfortable having sex with him while Walter's here. He didn't like it-- he pouted about it-- he told me I could trust him not to be stupid about it (HA! As if!!! I'm stupid enough to love you, sweetheart, I'm not stupid enough to believe you can't be stupid around Walter; you let him play you for absolutely nothing. --Maybe I will tell him that. Somehow). I didn't budge. Thankfully, eventually, he relented himself. He asked if we could still at least talk, and that's fine. Walt doesn't like me close to him just generally, and he thinks I'm fucking every guy around anyway. The ambient suspicion will be there regardless-- that's all the more reason why sex is off the table.

Since talking was on the table, though, I did ask him some questions about Walter. I knew I wasn't going to get anywhere just opening with a barrage of my feelings about him. I had to really know why the hell Walt had such a hold on him. And of course, I knew Walter knew him since he was fifteen. Barely in high school. Just some guy talking some kid he doesn't know into being in his band, or whatever. I couldn't help but say-- that doesn't seem kinda weird to you, now? Softened it with a ~well, I'm glad it worked out in your case, but you know what I'm saying; it could've gone a lot worse~. And Nate shrugged, said that Walt's always looked after him, and he was ~so talented~ that of course it'd be scouted out. Hell, apparently, Walt took better care of him than his own folks, sometimes. I told him that Walt let him get away with murder, and he laughed. "Not murder! Plenty of stupid traffic charges, tho'." Well, I've given you something hopefully at least just as interesting as anything that could get you a stupid traffic charge. "Well, it's dangerous in it's own way, right? You said so yerself. Walt makes it EXTRA dangerous. I think you like that shit and you just don't wanna admit it!" Be that as it may, we still weren't fucking. "Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm just sayin'." Riiiight.

Talking to him makes me feel a little more stupid myself sometimes, but it's still nicer than I thought it'd be even when I'm paying full attention to it (instead of half-spaced). I've been able to avoid Walter outside of the bare minimum for business. I try to have someone else with me when I do. I don't trust myself alone with him and I won't until I know exactly how he made me panic so badly that one time. As long as there's a possibility of that happening again, I'm not comfortable alone with him. Does he still say shitty little things about me having Eoin or whoever else with me every time? Of course. But that's better than certain potential alternatives. I can take the little picks at me. Those are what I'm used to.

At least Nate is comfortable talking with me some about Walter, even if it's just the surface of it all. He's not instantly hostile or suspicious, and there were certainly times in the past where he would have been both. Maybe he does trust me. I don't know how much to trust him in return. I'm never good at knowing that. I feel like I always get burned in the end no matter how careful I am. But this is for him as much as it is for me, even if he might not understand that. It's like I said earlier: we're gifting each other life. He's already doing that for me; taking us away from Walter and getting him to realize how necessary it is/was, is me paying that back. I have to have at least some faith he'll understand that eventually. I always assume otherwise, because I'm often right. But there's an odd desperate sort of optimism I'm feeling right now (at least, compared to my baseline), a sort of raging against the dying of the light, maybe (haven't thought of that poem since Luis...). I need to believe I can make this work.

*

That fucker Jeffrey actually asked me where Nate and I have been "slipping off to" after everything. Like, it was easy enough to say "to get drinks" before we go our separate ways-- it's nice being able to get along with him after such an awful time in the studio, and I wanted to make the best of it. All that is still true. Even to the point of getting drinks-- we often do get drinks before we head back to one of our rooms. And we eventually do go our separate ways. Easy enough! But still, like, none of his fucking business. Fucking busybody. I know he wants to get to know me, but I need to work with him, and if I tell him that everything I learn about him makes me want to know him even LESS, that would get in the way of working with him. He's exhausting to be around. It's probably mutual, and I don't care at this point. I care about functionality and results.

It pissed me off so much I found Nate and fucked him, though. So much for not fucking (yes, I'm an idiot). It started rough, a venting of my frustrations, but it ended up surprisingly light-hearted, both of us making the other laugh until we were rolling on the bed cracking up holding each other. --I actually started the silliness, this time. I was fucking him from behind, and I leaned down as close as I could to his ear, asked him so where HAVE you been slipping off to with me, Nathan, hmm? (and he was already stifling giggles) What HAVE you been doing with me that's so much more interesting than table tennis with Jeffrey?

Big laughs out of Nate, then. "God, Jeff, I'm sorry, man, I've just been gettin' fucked by a real' fuckin wildcat of a babe lately." Before MARRIAGE, Nathan?? --And then we were both cracking up. We did eventually make each other cum, but it was secondary. I was holding him tight, my laughter muffled by my face pressed into his chest, and he was holding me back, laughing into my hair, and it felt... safe. As soon as I realized it I still froze for a moment, as if to check if it was real. But it was. And I had to bask in that feeling, especially, above all others. I wanted to know it, deep into my bones.

I did tell him, after all the silliness had died down, that I had my reasons for not trusting him earlier. Quite a few of them-- some within his control, and some not. I told him I was always attracted to his recklessness-- in playing and in life-- but it also got him into the stupidest kinds of trouble. You can afford less and less of that trouble if you're someone like me. It necessitates caution. I also admitted that his sexual aggression was something I was initially uncomfortable with because I couldn't match it. I don't like sexual situations where the odds are fully stacked against me. I've been burned too many times. I've been burned too many times by straight men and mostly-straight men in particular[116]. It's not something I can afford much of anymore, and I already couldn't afford much, being how I am and being who I am.

"We've known each other for so long, though, man!" HA, yes, and in that time you've done countless things to not inspire my trust in you. Even starting this up again was against my better judgement, but I needed something. I admitted how it often just felt like I floated through each day, or otherwise blinked through it. When he said he was worried I'd float off and away, it was an understandable worry. I did need something to tie me down. Or someone, I guess. He grinned at that. "Yeah, I know." --The grin faded quick, though. Turned into a sudden worried little face. "I don't want you to leave, man. We can figure something out. Okay?"

And did he even know why I wanted to leave? "I mean, Walt. Right? And you got yer reasons there n' that's okay. But maybe-- maybe we can figure somethin' out. I can get through to him about shit somehow. --Like, not that we're fuckin', I just mean, that you're an okay guy." He's already done far too much to me for that, but I would've appreciated the offer, oh, maybe five years ago. "Fuck, man, don't get bitchy with me now--" I was just stating the facts. I needed to figure out what I wanted to do to taper off of speed and I needed to see if my voice was alright, too, alongside everything with Walt. It's not just about him anymore. It's about self-preservation, more generally. Could he understand that? "So if you DID leave... it wouldn't be forever. Like, just a year again. Like last time. Right?" I can't promise anything. I don't know. He pulled me close to him, held me tightly. "Just hang on, okay?" I can promise that in the short-term, at least. He let out a big sigh at that, lit a cigarette. Ugh, I got him acting like Ben.

PS: Apparently that's how he's been explaining away any marks that people notice-- he digs rough sex with women; it's ~passionate~ that way. Well, I suppose I did provide him that suggestion, didn't I?

PPS: ...I hate how hot it is that he apparently thinks of me (sexually) as a "wildcat". Ugh.

*

Nathan told me something so casually today that chilled me to the bone. And I couldn't react too strongly to it. I had to be careful. Precise. Tried to think of Lou, how he did his work, slightly detached from everything, emotions at just a bit of a remove.

I mean, sex was AMAZING, and it wasn't even full-on fucking. I had him tied up on the towel hook of the hotel bathroom door, biting and sucking bruises into his hips, tracing old lashmarks with my nails (lightly as possible at first, eventually full-on digging into his skin) while I played with his cock and sucked it (and UGH what a nice cock he has, and he was almost impressed with how well I could handle it, but it's still not like he's Cowboy. Of course, he wouldn't know about Cowboy. Ugh, imagine having Nathan AND Cowboy... like, at once. That'd be something worth living for). Kissed him deep, felt him up, felt the both of us up together, put a hand around his neck, came on each other, moaned into each others' mouths.

That was the good of it, and it was VERY good. Even some of the aftermath was good-- untying him, supporting him while we cleaned each other off, eventually collapsing on the bed, stroking each others' hair, kissing each other lazily and taking about silly things. At some point, he gently flicked my nose ring. "Y'know, I always wondered what got into you to get that. It's sexy, man! But it was out of the blue!" So I told him that Walter said my nose was an "image problem". And I thought the very idea was so stupid I had to make it even more of an "image problem". --He laughed at that. "Oh, yeah! I remember now, Greg didn't know what to think about you! I think you scared him a little, ha! --I mean, I guess none of us could really fully figure you out." Good! "...Yeah, I figured you'd say some shit like that. --Walt can be stupid about shit like that, though. To me, too. It ain't just you." Oh?

He told me a story, then, about a time early on in his career with Walter when he met a girl he really liked. He had started seeing her casually, and then was dating her enough that Walter saw her around. Walt didn't like her. "Didn't learn 'til later that Walt showed her folks pictures of me at some orgy or something. Like, 'this is who you're daughter's dating', or whatever. HA!" ...And how did he get those pictures? Like, was he in the fucking orgy with you? "...Not IN it." Just hanging out while you were having an orgy? "...Fuck, I dunno man, I was probably high on five different things. I was a dumb kid!" You were high on five different things and Walter was taking pictures of you having sex?

He got right up out of the bed, then. "I dunno what the fuck you're tryin' to pull with me, man, but I don't fuckin' like it." His voice was a little shaky. I told him I wasn't trying to "pull" anything; what he told me just sounded weird to me. "W-well, I probably did a shit job explaining it. I'm dumb, you know that." ...Sure. "SHUT the fuck UP, man!" And he snatched his clothes up, threw them back on, stormed towards the door-- paused. Looked back at me. "I just-- I need to think, okay? Or get so fuckin' drunk I can't think anymore. One or the fuckin' other."

I'm not sure if I did all this right, or if there even was a way to do it "right". I hope he really does think, I guess. I'm worried he chose the second option. That's what he'd usually do. I'm showing the restraint of a saint by not finding Walt and killing him, though. He met Nathan when he was fifteen. I just keep thinking that, between wanting to kill him.

*

[116]I didn't tell him that I was Lorenzo's prettyboy-- like an exotic object alongside girls treated similar ways for different reasons. I obviously didn't tell him that sometimes looking back at the oldest band shoots and things, I can't help but see it all as Walter making me his own prettyboy, in his own way. You think being a straight guy's exception makes you special. It doesn't mean shit. They either don't know what they want or they know exactly what they want (to feel good at your expense without a thought for you, or to feel good through humiliating or dehumanizing you). Either type can hurt you for it or even blame you for it, and you have no recompense, because you're the faggot. He takes his sins off and puts them on you.