Sunburnt

by Joey Jameson

  Just like all those times before.

  Perhaps it was simply his mind’s way of coping with the palpable loneliness he struggled with, but he was desperate to feel something other than fear. His heart ached for the touch of another. Something real and gratifying that he could hold onto. But he knew that if he let someone in then he put them at risk.

  It was another sleepless night for Lyric, filled with endless tossing and turning. His head rocked back and forth with thoughts and questions and visions of Lenox.

  The clock next to his bed read quarter to six the last time he checked, and the next time he opened his eyes, it was just past ten. Giving in, he pulled himself out of bed, quickly showered and left the house.

  He wasn’t sure exactly at what point he had decided on seeing Lenox again during the night, but as his feet hit the pavement, he didn’t give it another thought.

  WHEN HE ARRIVED at the beach, guitar in hand and wearing nothing but his usual board shorts and a tie-dye vest, he scanned the many different groups of people who were already on the beach at this early hour. It only took a moment for him to spot a group of four girls, each in tiny bikinis and with assorted coloured hair; the same group he had met on the beach last night with Lenox. He wasted no time in going over to them.

  As he approached, his bare feet padding their way through the deep, golden sand, their animated conversation came to a close and they stared at him.

  “Buenos días,” he offered to them with a wide, toothy grin.

  A short silence filled the space between them before one of the blondes cleared her throat and returned his greeting.

  “Buenos días,” she replied, her voice a mixture of what he imagined to be posh English and a half-hearted attempt at a Spanish accent.

  “Please forgive me, señoritas, if I am bothering you,” Lyric added, his hands together in a prayer position in front of his heart.

  “Not at all,” the ginger one said. “You looking for Lenox? ’Cause the lazy ass is still in bed…”

  Lyric gave a gentle laugh, meeting her eyes with his own friendly stare before continuing.

  “I’m afraid you’ve pinned me already. I was, in fact, looking for Lenox. Do you expect him to be joining you today?”

  The ladies all looked at Lyric in awe, lapping up his chivalrousness and kind nature; exactly the way he had intended.

  “Here’s hoping,” the ginger one said.

  “I’m Bambi,” the blonde offered, licking her lips.

  “Lyric,” he replied. “A pleasure to make all of your acquaintances.”

  “Would you care to join us, Lyric?” another blonde asked, her voice much lighter than the first.

  “I wouldn’t want to intrude.”

  “You wouldn’t be,” Bambi interjected.

  “No. But thank you very much for the offer. Really.”

  “It’s no bother, honestly. I’ll text Lenox and I’m sure he’ll come right down.”

  “No, no, please. I’d actually like to surprise him. I wouldn’t want him to feel forced to meet me. After last night, I mean…”

  The girls all exchanged confused glances before turning back to Lyric.

  “I’ll just wait over there. Again, it was lovely to meet you. All of you.” Lyric took his guitar and moved away silently, flashing them all another quick smile before tossing his dreads over his shoulders and making his way over to a lounger.

  A half hour or so passed before Lenox joined the girls on the beach. Lyric noticed his jet-black hair first, tied once again in a knot at the back of his head. He wore a casual pair of navy-blue swimming trunks and a black vest that framed his broad shoulders to perfection. He carried only a towel with him, draped around his neck, and spoke in an animated manner to his friends.

  Lyric tried to play it cool, strumming his guitar casually as he watched the scene unfold from the corner of his eye. After a moment or two, he felt sets of eyes on him. Pretending not to notice, he continued playing, adding Spanish lyrics to a made-up song as he turned his own gaze to the sea.

  After a few minutes, he spied a figure coming towards him in his peripheral vision. He remained draped across the sun lounger as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

  When Lenox was finally a few feet in front of him, he turned to face him; a sly, sideways smile tugging at one corner of his lips.

  “Buenos días,” he said in his raspy tone.

  “Good morning,” Lenox responded in English.

  “Your friends said you’d be along soon enough.”

  “Have you really been waiting here for me?”

  Lyric nodded, squinting up at him through the harsh light of the sun. He patted the seat next to him, inviting Lenox to sit.

  “How are you?” Lenox asked, accepting the invitation and taking a seat next to him.

  “I’m good, thanks, how are you feeling?”

  “Yeah, feeling all right. I guess.” He leaned forward, resting his forearms on his thighs, and steepled his hands. “Look, I’m sorry for last night…”

  “Sorry for what?”

  “Sorry for shooting off in a huff…I guess I had a bit too much to drink.”

  “No worries, I’m glad I got to see you again.”

  “You are?”

  “Sure! Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “Well, I thought…I guess I just assumed when you didn’t want to…”

  “What, get a bite to eat?”

  “Well, yeah…”

  Lyric felt relaxed, and very sure of himself. He could sense Lenox’s unease and he was finding it irresistibly sexy. He leaned in, closing the distance between them a fraction. With his hand, he pulled Lenox’s face towards his own until they were once again eye to eye.

  “I just didn’t want to do something I’d regret and that you wouldn’t remember,” he whispered, his lips barely moving as they caressed each word.

  “Something you’d regret?” Lenox repeated his words back to him.

  “Well, less that I’d regret, and more that you wouldn’t remember enough to appreciate…”

  And with that, Lyric pulled his face in for a kiss, planting his lusciously full lips on Lenox’s mouth.

  Lyric sensed his nerves, Lenox holding back as if he was afraid to take it too far, or let himself go somehow. But he only pulled Lenox in closer as a way of trying to rid him of his doubt. Finally, Lenox met his intensity and returned it with the same fire.

  Their lips parted and Lyric pushed his tongue into Lenox’s mouth. It was warm and wet and searching. Lenox found Lyric’s face with his hands and gently traced the line of his jaw from his chin to the back of his head until they reached his mane of thick dreadlocks.

  The feeling of Lenox’s hands on his face switched Lyric on like a lightbulb and he returned the gesture, letting his hands find Lenox’s face, his fingertips dancing across his stubbled cheeks and tangling themselves in his long black hair. Lyric began to stiffen in his shorts, the material tugging and constricting as his erection grew with each stroke of his tongue inside Lenox’s mouth.

  He pulled Lenox’s face in closer still, their noses touching and heads tilting to opposite sides to make room for their kiss. Lenox shifted his body, causing the chair to creak beneath their weight. He seemed to get spooked and pulled away from their embrace.

  Licking his lips, he looked quickly away, scanning the beach for gawkers.

  “I’m sorry…I’m not usually so…”

  “Don’t be,” Lyric interrupted, casting a glance around him. “Take a look. I don’t think anyone even blinked an eye. This is Ibiza, after all!” He sat back in a casual pose, bending one knee and tucking it up underneath him on the chair.

  Lenox turned to face him, smiling enormously.

  “Listen, I don’t want to keep you from your friends, but I was wondering…do you have any plans for dinner tonight?” Lyric asked.

  “Tonight?”

  “Because I’d love to take you out for that bite.”

  “That would be…Great.”


  “Excellent. Shall I pick you up around nine?”

  “Yes, sounds perfect.”

  Lenox plugged the address of the villa where he was staying and his number into Lyric’s phone before wishing him a good day as Lyric stood to leave.

  Lyric walked away elated, filled with happiness and wishing this feeling would stay with him. He closed his eyes as he wandered down the promenade, the stone warm beneath his bare feet. He tried to push his fears and nerves deep down into his core, projecting them and all other negativity out and back down into the earth.

  Perhaps this time will be different. Perhaps this time, I’ll be able to keep control.

  Perhaps this time, no one will get hurt.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  THEN

  After their dinner at Teatro Pereyra, Lyric was on top of the world. Their conversation had been so easy, so pleasant. He was finally starting to feel like himself again.

  He decided to bring Lenox back to the apartment in the D’Alt Villa. Once inside, the sexual vibe between them seemed to crank itself up a notch. Lyric stared at Lenox as he explored the apartment, taking in the view from the floor-to-ceiling Mediterranean-style windows. He admired his beautiful, muscular frame; the way his chest rose with each breath he took, the muscles in his legs flexed as he casually shifted the weight from one to the other.

  As Lyric stood on the spot, the onset was quick this time. So quick he barely had time to react, let alone to put up a fight. Within seconds he was floating up above his body, looking down at himself, the sounds in the apartment replaced by a piercing ringing in his ears. He could still feel his limbs but it was as if he was no longer in control of them. His mouth tasted differently too and there was a new smell to his skin that was so subtle only he could detect it. He heard his voice excuse himself as his body made its way into the bedroom.

  He watched from above as his hand dipped into his shorts and pulled out his mobile and dialled a number.

  Who am I calling? And why?

  Still floating up above, he believed if he tried hard enough he could strain to see who he was calling.

  It was Lenox’s number appearing on the display screen.

  The surreal nature of what was happening made his head throb. It was as if he was a passenger in his own body, and someone else was in the driver’s seat. He was helpless to stop it, and could only sit back and watch the story unfold. He felt so far away from his body and the feeling only intensified as the seconds ticked by. Before long the images he was watching began to blur and fade around the edges as if he was floating further and further away from the scene. The clouds in his head went from white to grey to black.

  He recognised the smell his skin had taken on. It was both familiar and strange, like something from his past but also linked somehow to his present.

  Vanilla.

  It was Cedar’s smell. The scent of his aftershave. The scent of his skin. So poignant and so present. Right here in his nostrils. Filling the room with its sweet musk. Back from the grave.

  Then he was gone.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  NOW

  “Cedar and I were always so different,” Lyric began, focusing his attention at his hands in his lap, unable to look at the officers anymore. “You’d think identical twins would be more on the same page than we were, but nothing about us was similar. Not our tastes, not the way we dressed, not even the way we wore our hair. I remember the day I got my dreads done, Cedar was so disgusted with me he couldn’t even look at me for a week. But despite how different we were, we were completely and totally inseparable.”

  “Did you have the same group of friends?” the female officer asked.

  “Cedar didn’t really have many friends. I was always the outgoing one, whereas he preferred his own company. I would always ask him to join me if I was going somewhere. Sometimes he would, but when he did, he would always seem awkward and uncomfortable. Like he would rather be anywhere but there. He much preferred it when we did things together…Alone.”

  “Would you say that your brother was possessive of you?”

  Lyric paused and thought about the question before answering.

  “Possessive doesn’t even begin to describe it.”

  “How so?”

  “As we became teenagers, I sort of fell into the wrong crowd. I started hanging with the popular kids our age on the island. Getting into trouble, drinking, drugs, that sort of thing. Cedar hated it. He hated that I started spending so much time away from him.”

  “So, he was hurt?”

  “He was destroyed. We started growing apart. He would become angry with me for no reason; we’d fight. Throw things.”

  “Was he ever physically violent towards you?”

  “I’m not sure who started it, but yeah. We were both quite violent with each other at times.”

  “What changed?”

  “I started getting into trouble a lot. Like serious shit. I started getting sent away…”

  “To detention centres?”

  Lyric just nodded.

  “And how did Cedar feel about you going away?”

  Lyric sighed before answering, “Although he never actually came out and said it, I think he was almost happy I was getting sent away…”

  “He wasn’t upset at losing you again?”

  “Part of him was…But another part of him was happy seeing me suffer.”

  The officers exchanged a look between themselves.

  “He was happy I was hurting. Pleased that I was finally learning my lesson. Once when he came to visit me in juvie, he had the smuggest look on his face, like I was getting what I deserved.”

  “How did that make you feel?”

  “I hated feeling like the black sheep of the family.”

  “Did it change the way you acted when you got out?”

  “When I got out of juvie, you’d think it would have set me on the straight and narrow. I wanted to be good. I really did. I tried to be good…”

  “But?”

  “But it was as if I wasn’t totally in control. You know? Like there was something stopping me from changing. Like there was something in me that wanted to see me suffer.”

  Lyric picked at the skin around his thumb until it started to bleed. He sucked it before sitting back in his chair and running a hand through his dreadlocks.

  A silence stretched out between them as the officers considered the next direction they wished to take.

  “Lyric, tell us about the accident.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  THEN

  When Lyric awoke the next morning, he felt disorientated and fuzzy, as though he was waking up in someone else’s bed after a one-night stand. Shifting where he lay, it took a moment for his eyes to refocus and for the familiar surroundings to come to light.

  Feeling something in the bed next to him, he turned to see Lenox lying there, sound asleep and snoring softly. He froze for a moment as his head caught up with what his eyes were seeing.

  What is Lenox doing in my bed?

  He began to shake as he was coming up blank.

  Yanking himself out of bed, he could do nothing but stare at Lenox’s body, framed beautifully beneath the thin white sheet.

  He stared as he desperately tried to remember. Thinking back. Trying to piece together what he remembered about the night before.

  What happened and how did we end up in bed together? Did we have sex? Why can’t I remember?

  He could recall snippets. They were by the window. It was late. After dinner. He had brought Lenox back to the apartment and they were admiring the view…

  But then what?

  The feeling.

  He remembered that feeling of weightlessness. He remembered leaving the room and excusing himself for a minute. Dialling a number. Lenox’s number.

  Then the smell of vanilla.

  But that was it. That was the last thing he could remember.

  He stared down at Lenox asleep in his bed. Naked. He had no memory
of when or how they had gotten there, and the more he allowed his mind to try to recollect the details, the more forceful the panic became. It started off slow and unmoving, like a rock sitting in the pit of his stomach. He could sense an attack on its way.

  Shaking his head, he grabbed a pair of briefs from the floor. He wrapped his dreads into a pile on his head before securing them with an elastic band from around his wrist, and set off for the kitchen.

  He poured himself a glass of freezing cold water from a bottle in the fridge and drank it down in one, the cool liquid awakening his core and settling his impending panic attack. He counted down from one hundred in his head and waited for the panic to subside and the shakes to stop. Opening his eyes and gripping the countertop for support, he fished around in his head for answers.

  His mind was blank. Completely void as to what had happened last night. His chest was still gripped with anxiety and he began to quiver with fear and uncertainty.

  He needed to be busy. His hands could not be idle or the paranoia that was nestled in his belly would take hold and he’d fall apart.

  Which was something he couldn’t let himself do in front of Lenox.

  Not today. Not yet. Not after an episode.

  How would he explain it? Lenox would think he was deranged and be out of his life faster than he had come into it. But as he moved around his open-plan kitchen, he told himself that this was not going to be the case. Not again. Not like the last time.

  Breakfast. He would make them breakfast. They would eat and everything would be okay. Lenox was fine. Nothing bad had happened. He poured himself another glass of water from the fridge and drank it faster than before. He was starting to feel better. Calmer.

  It wasn’t long before he heard shuffling coming from the bedroom. Lenox was up. He put a smile on his face and prepared a whole conversation in his head as he did sometimes when he was nervous.

  Lenox appeared around the corner a moment later, looking ruffled and sleepy.

  “¡Buenos días!” he called out, flashing Lenox a forced, toothy grin.

  “Good morning.”

  “I hope you’re hungry. French toast?”