One Life to Lose

by Kris Ripper

  Except I could see that he thought I was hesitating, and I wasn’t. It was just that my limbs had turned to stone, and if I walked closer, he’d certainly know how much it had turned me on to see what they’d done, and what would he think of me?

  I was unable to stop my eyes from grazing over the front of Josh’s trousers, and of course I wasn’t the only one, of course he was as turned on, if not more. It gave me the push I needed.

  Closer, focused on his face, I could see how exhausted he was, how his eyes pulled down at the corners.

  “You good?” he asked, voice low and a little hoarse.

  “I think so.” I nodded at Keith. “You guys?”

  Josh’s hand smoothed down over Keith’s spine. “Yeah. So there’s a way I’d like to do this, but I don’t want you to feel like a piece of meat between us.”

  I couldn’t imagine complaining about being a piece of meat between them, but I waited.

  “Do you mind if I touch you?”

  He’d asked before, I thought, though it was hazy now. My mind had protectively fogged over everything but this moment, relegating all of it to a filmstrip overexposed beyond recognition.

  In this moment I said, “I don’t mind. I think I might enjoy it. Both of you. Sorry, I’m not sure how to do this, and that was—” I glanced at Keith again. “Can I ask if he’s okay?”

  Josh’s smile—still tired, but so incredibly warm, so pleased—made me smile. “Oh, you can do anything you want to him. Right, babe?”

  “Ugh.”

  A light slap to Keith’s tenderized thigh. He yelped, but I could tell this was more for show. I knelt beside the bed and brushed the hair from his eyes. “That was so intense. How did you convince Josh to talk like that to you?”

  “He kind of invented it, but yeah, once he started up, I made him keep going.” He took a slow breath and exhaled. “I gotta tell you a secret, you ready?”

  “Of course.”

  “Don’t tell Josh.”

  I drew an X on my heart with my pinky finger. In my peripheral vision, Josh’s smile widened.

  “That shit is really hard for him, but he’ll never admit it. Check in with him later, okay? Like, I can, but he doesn’t want me to think it’s too much for him or I won’t ask him to do it. So you check in with him. Promise?”

  “I promise.”

  Sweaty, red-eyed, disheveled, and yet Keith looked every bit as boyish and wholesome as he ever did. I couldn’t reconcile it.

  “Now let him get handsy. It’s gonna be hot. You know he thinks you’re only here because you like me, right?”

  I frowned, turning my face up to Josh’s.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “You don’t have to like us perfectly equally. No obligations.”

  “You think I like Keith more than you?”

  “I think Keith turns you on more than I do, which is different.”

  I slowly shook my head, marveling, wondering where signals had crossed, and how determined Josh must have been to see that when it was always both of them. “You’re wrong. Is that why you keep asking if it’s okay if you touch me? Josh, I—” I want you seemed so inescapable. I like you so juvenile. “I like the idea of you touching me, Joshua.”

  “Oh god,” Keith mumbled. “You should call him that all the time.”

  “It would lose its impact if I did it all the time.” I raised my eyebrows at Josh in challenge.

  Now a little of the performance fell away, and I could see more of the exhaustion, more of the caution that must have been a larger feature of those earlier encounters than I knew.

  “I have to trust that you’ll tell me if you don’t like something, Cameron.”

  “I will.”

  “And if I get a little—a little bit—” He faltered.

  “Forceful?” I suggested.

  “I wouldn’t even go that far. But it’s okay with you if I act like I’m in charge?”

  “Josh, you are. How could it be anyone else?”

  “It gets all twisty,” Keith said. “Who’s in charge, who’s got control. Like the guy who isn’t in charge is the one with all the control, kinda, except if you think about it that way too much, it sort of ruins it, so you kind of have to pretend that you aren’t— It’s easier to say Josh is in charge. As long as you get that, you can end it whenever you like.”

  “Has it ever struck either of you that all this requires a lot more conversation than other forms of relationships?”

  “Oh you have no idea, Cam. Seriously.” Keith wiggled a little, encouraging Josh’s hand to continue its languid path up and down his spine. “But the major thing is, we’re about to pretend Josh is the guy calling the shots, and he’s gonna make me go down on you, and that’s gonna be, like, the things dreams are made of, so I’m totally excited.”

  Josh’s hand slid down his cleft, then under. “You are excited. On your knees, babe.”

  Josh stood and Keith knelt. I caught my breath and adjusted my trousers again, while I was still low enough so the bed hid my movement.

  “Pretty boy,” Josh said. “Such a pretty mouth. How long do you think Cam’s been fantasizing about this mouth? Awhile, I bet. Maybe a long time. You’re gonna take him nice and deep, aren’t you, angel?”

  Keith leaned into Josh’s palm on his cheek, eyelashes fluttering.

  “You take my breath away,” Josh said, almost too softly for me to hear it. Then he looked at me. “Cam. C’mere.”

  I stood, maintaining as much dignity as I could, heart keeping up a steadily increasing beat in my chest. Each step brought me closer to them, to the energy of them, like I was on the cusp of something so much greater than myself. Everything was in Technicolor.

  “Here.” Josh stepped back, drawing me against him. His hands smoothed over my body, and I sucked in my stomach. I wasn’t naturally lean like Keith, or gym-lean like Josh. I perpetually carried a little bit of extra weight, hidden beneath vests and suit jackets. But Josh’s hands released the buttons of my waistcoat and stole over the shirt beneath it as if he were feeling his way in the dark. Nowhere to hide from his fingers, or Keith’s eyes, following them.

  “You’re shaking.” His hands slipped along my sides, and I realized he was hugging me, holding me, his erection hard at my ass. “Here.” Josh’s hand took one of mine and wound it into Keith’s hair. “Let Keith ground you. He’s so good.”

  Keith pressed his face against my leg.

  I took a few shuddering breaths. “It’s just . . . everything is so bright right now. The lines are blurring.”

  “Then close your eyes.”

  It seemed like it was far too simple to work, but I closed my eyes and the darkness was immediately calming, lowering the visual overstimulation, intensifying the heat of Josh’s arms around me, the sweet pressure of Keith’s head.

  “We don’t want to creep you out, Cam, but we’ve been thinking about this for a while.” Josh pulled my shirt out of my trousers, and when I was almost overcome again, he paused with both hands on my belt.

  My other hand found its way to Keith, and he moaned.

  “Yeah, that’s good. Real good.” My belt undone. The clasp of my trousers. I expected him to go directly to the zipper, but instead his fingers traced the length of me, making me tremble in his arms, making me tighten my grip in Keith’s hair.

  “Please,” Keith murmured.

  “I might keep Cam for myself and make you watch,” Josh replied, still teasing me through my trousers, and I could feel little jolts as he pushed against me from behind.

  I would do anything with them. Anything at all. In the spirit of exploration or affection or the bubble of this moment, in which all things seemed attainable.

  I dragged Keith’s face against me, and Josh immediately joined in, hand clamping over mine. I kept my eyes closed, but I could feel the tension of his hand directing Keith’s head, and Keith reached around to hold my legs, letting us rub him against my body.

  Josh laughed roughly. “Oh fuck yes. This is so g
ood. I’m really liking having a partner in crime, babe. You’re a genius.”

  “Thought I was your—”

  “Suck him through his clothes.”

  Keith bent to his task, and I had to look now, I had to see it, I had to watch Keith’s bright-pink lips and red tongue as they darkened the brown weave of my trousers. If Josh hadn’t been so strong behind me, I might have melted right into the floor. The physical sensation was pressure and warmth and perhaps not enough friction, but when paired with the visual I was almost undone.

  “Babe, don’t make him come, that’s fucked up.” Josh hauled Keith’s head away. Now he unzipped me, and I shuddered as he withdrew my cock and stroked me until I could only control my urge to pump into his hand by holding myself so rigid I shook.

  “Hey, boy,” Josh murmured.

  “Please,” I said. “Please. I need to— I have to—”

  “He knows, Cam. This is Josh getting off.” Keith met my eyes. Then he opened his mouth and oh god, god, Josh rubbed my cock over Keith’s lips.

  I shattered, losing all ability to keep still. “Please—please—”

  “Take him slowly, angel. Draw him out.”

  “Fuck yeah.”

  What followed cannot be described in simple words, at least not in English. There are four words for love in Greek, and three in Japanese. I don’t know if any language has the ability to express the way two men can slowly take apart a third until he doesn’t know his own name or where he is. If you rolled all the words for love and sex and grace together into one, maybe you would have some sense of that night, of how timeless it was, and how eternal, as if it had been happening all along, as if it would continue happening until the end of the world.

  I had never experienced pleasure like that: liquid, hot, desperation with an edge sharp enough to cut like a knife. I had never felt so held, so contained, so taken care of. Every sensation was extreme, but when I parsed them, separated them carefully, unwound them, not a single one was more than I’d felt before. It was the symphony of all at once, of Josh’s fingers splayed across my belly, of Keith’s hair brushing one of my thighs, eventually of fingertips pressing into my darkest, deepest places, of pleasure so high and pure that even after it passed I could still practically hear it, the long tail of a note no one had ever played before.

  Later, much later, I rose from their bed, extracting myself from one of Keith’s legs. I was unsurprised to discover that Keith was a sprawler, all long limbs, and that he looked younger while asleep, a boy who slept with abandon and no sense of rules.

  I dressed and found Josh in the kitchen with a cup of tea. He lifted the kettle when he saw me, testing its weight.

  “Still enough if you want a cup.”

  “I should get home.”

  He put the kettle down. “You can stay the night, Cam. If you want.”

  “I half think I’ll turn into a pumpkin if I try to stay any longer.” I stood there for a long moment. He looked perfectly fine, if still tired. I knew that neither one of us had slept. Keith had dropped off and I had lain beside him. Josh had straightened up, made the bed around us, dimmed the lights.

  “I made him a promise,” I said finally.

  “Consider me checked in with.” He sipped his tea and leaned down over the counter. “What about you?”

  No answer I could give such a casual question was worthy enough to describe how I felt. “I hope I proved to you that you are not an also-ran.”

  He offered a rueful smile. “Sorry about that. I was pretty convinced, but I should have listened to him.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “I guess because if he was wrong, and I’d gotten invested in your—in your interest, it would have hurt to find out we were off base.”

  Unspoken words shimmered in the air between us, but I couldn’t catch all of them, couldn’t understand all the threads we were holding or where they led. I stepped forward and he straightened as if to meet me, setting the mug aside.

  I touched his jaw and stared into his eyes. “Deep brown like the wood grain on the seats of the theater, strong and enduring. Why aren’t you asleep, Josh?”

  “Insomnia.”

  “Is that all?”

  He pressed his jaw a little harder into my fingers, and I slid my hand until I cupped his face. “I’m just thinking. You’re a hell of a variable, man. I thought I had this all pretty well planned, but you—everything is more than I expect with you, Cam.”

  It wasn’t reproach, so I didn’t apologize. “Is that a bad thing?”

  “Hell no. But it’s something to think about.” His eyes skimmed to the side, then returned. “Do you believe in God?”

  “I’m Catholic.”

  “Yeah, but do you believe in God?”

  Even this didn’t feel like an odd direction for the night to go.

  “Yes. I mean, I struggle with it, but I pray. I still believe someone—or something—hears my prayers.”

  He nodded. “After scenes like that I stay up to pray. Keith’s an atheist, always has been. I don’t really keep secrets from him, but he doesn’t ask me about God and I don’t tell.”

  I tilted his head down, kissing his forehead. A benediction, maybe. Or a sign I understood.

  Josh let his head fall forward onto my shoulder. “He’s right, you know? It’s hard for me to say all that, even when it’s fun, even when it’s hot, it still gets to me later. So I ask Jesus to forgive me. You think that’s crazy?”

  “Does He forgive you?”

  He huffed a laugh. “Yeah. Yeah, He does.”

  “I don’t think it’s crazy, Josh. And I think you’re brave to do things that scare you.”

  “I’d do anything for Keith. Sometimes I don’t think he gets how much I’d do for him.”

  But he’d been the one who sent me into the future with instructions to check in. Keith understood more than he’d overtly say, I thought.

  “He gets it.”

  “I’d feel better if he didn’t. If I could hide it. Not that—I don’t mean that really. But he makes me feel like flying, Cam. How nuts is that?”

  I dared to touch the back of his neck. “I think that’s called being in love.”

  “Yeah, I knew I was in love with him like two months after we met. But I thought it would kind of . . . fade. I thought the crazy part of it would lighten up a little. We live together, we run a business, how can he still make me feel so . . . out of control?”

  “I don’t know.” I stroked his neck. “But it seems like he feels the same, and that’s something like a miracle.”

  “Yeah. It really is.” He lifted his head and kissed me. “You make everything so much more intense. I have no idea how that works. You sure you don’t want to spend the night?”

  “I’m sure. Thank you.”

  “Okay. Good night, Cam.”

  “Good night.”

  It was chilly outside. I’d been in a hurry earlier, hadn’t grabbed my overcoat. I missed it, walking down the street to my car. A noise from down an alley startled me, and I suddenly realized that despite the cars in the distance, I was alone.

  The wind was ice-cold and bit into my skin. I was grateful to reach the safety of my car, and I locked the Volvo’s doors once inside, feeling foolish, but willing to accept foolish for the resulting security.

  My apartment, also empty, nevertheless welcomed me home. It was a quarter past 4 a.m. when I emerged from a hot shower where I’d discovered all manner of physical souvenirs from the evening, in the form of scratches and spots rough from stubble and a few bruises forming that I felt certain were from teeth. I had no memory of having acquired any of these marks, but I found myself lingering over them affectionately, fingertips tracing the outlines of sensation, wondering how they had happened, and if it would happen again.

  Exceedingly grateful I didn’t have to open the theater on Sundays, I finally fell asleep.

  The following Saturday I showed Penny Serenade, a film that garnered Cary Grant an Oscar nomina
tion but is mostly lost on people who only catch the most popular black-and-white movies. (My father, after half a bottle of wine, would call them the Casablanca classicists. My mother would laugh and tell him to stop being elitist.)

  Penny Serenade is a film about love and grief and the intersections thereof. I find it difficult to watch, a bit like I find du Maurier: it’s so good it hurts, making my chest tight and my fists clench.

  I wanted to sit beside Josh and Keith, imagined perhaps taking their hands for a moment when I knew what was coming and needed to brace, but in the end they were sitting somewhere in the middle of the theater and I lingered on the edges, unable to commit to a seat.

  I stood, watching from the wall along the hallway, back just far enough so that no one could see my anticipatory tears.

  For the first few minutes of the reception, I put up a pretty good front of having everything together, until Hugh Reynolds found me and offered me his hand, which I shook and did not let go.

  “I purposely came here alone tonight,” he said, his other hand coming up to grasp mine. “My husband and our very dear friend are sitting in the house right now waiting for me to call and tell them I’m all right.”

  “Are you?” I could hear how close the emotion was in my voice, feel it in my throat.

  “Do you ever find that sometimes their absence is merely a fact of your life, and at other times it is a needle stuck directly into a nerve, unrelenting no matter how much time has passed?”

  I couldn’t speak. Hugh’s mother had died years before my parents. He was one of the only people whose presence I had been able to tolerate afterward. He’d asked me if I planned to kill myself, and when I’d told him I might, but it’d mean the end of the Rhein so I hadn’t decided, he’d acted like that was a reasonable answer. Hugh had never demanded I be okay to save him worry, which enabled me to not be okay, a gift I hadn’t fully recognized until years later.

  He squeezed my hand and smiled, tears glittering in his eyes. “Forgive me, Cameron. I knew watching that particular movie would do this to me. It’s why I asked them to stay home.”