Looks are...

   I couldn’t help but feel tremendous pleasure the first time we had sex. He was one of those guys that you see around a lot, in advertisements, in television and in movies. He was very handsome and his body was almost genetically manipulated to please any living human. His pectorals were round and covered in short hairs and his abdomen was not heavily ripped but enough for anyone to look at him instantly, if he happened to be wearing no clothes on his upper body. He was that guy, the guy most of us would like to be like.

 Or be with. I had never really had a type. I had always like a variety of things and traits in men that would please me in many ways. That’s why I found the question “Is size important?” such a difficult one to actually respond. For me, it was all about the person. If the big penis was attached to a person who knew how to use it and who enjoyed having one, it would most likely end up becoming a very satisfying sexual relationship. If not, disappointment was not impossible nor very far away in time.

 And yeah, I would maybe call myself promiscuous. After a long relationship with one person, who ended up being a lying cheat, I decided that I didn’t really want to commit again, unless I felt something truly special. That has not happened since then, so until very recently I happened to use a lot of dating apps on the phones and websites in order to get dates and casual sex. I would even frequent themed parties and enjoy myself truly in them, no shame or guilt the next day. That’s who I am.

 When I met Henry, the perfect guy I mentioned earlier, I was working as an assistant photographer in a very popular magazine. The place and its people were truly unbearable but I liked the job and the amount of opportunities it could give me in the future. My goal was to become an actual photographer and to be able to have my own studio and work with important people, no matter if they were famous individuals or maybe prestigious magazines. I just wanted to be the one to make them famous, in a way at least.

 So I was the one to get coffee and also the one that practically built the set before the actual photographer came every morning into the studio. Well, it wasn’t exactly morning anymore when he came in, but you get the idea. I would prepare everything and he would just change a couple of things before shooting the actual pictures with the model of the day. It was frequently a female model or some new singer or actress. The magazine focused its attention on that area, thinking women wanted to be them and men wanted to be with them. Just like what I thought of Henry when I saw him.

 He came in one morning. He seemed lost and I actually thought, for a split second, that he was some guy looking for the employment office. But he wasn’t. Once I was closer, I realized how tall he was and how big his hands and feet were. Besides that, his eyes were beautiful and bright and his skin was obviously well taken care of. So he was a model and I had to apologize for my behavior and then made him come into the studio. It was very uncommon for a model to come in so early.

 I told Henry that Marco, the photographer, would take a couple more hours to get there. I pretended to look for a message from him, but I was actually sending texts to Marco telling him to come at once to the studio. I imagined him sleeping in his nice loft, with one or even two of the gorgeous models he had met throughout the years. He was a ladies man and everyone knew that. So I wasn’t surprised when Henry himself suggested for us to have something to drink, as Marco would take a while.

 He waited until I finished with the set, which took about fifteen minutes, and then I invited him to a coffee shop just next door. It was very strange because I felt every single person was looking our way, to Henry to be more precise. And it was true. The girl that took our order was almost to enthralled to even pay attention to what I was saying. I remember hoping that she had noted my almond milk but Henry wanted to sit down as we waited, so we did just that. And it amazed me to realize how little I actually talk to models.

 They were always there for Marco, so I would only do what he asked and then stay very quiet until the photography session was over and he left with the models laughing and talking about some party they had all been together. I would then have to clean everything up and go home. In the nights I wasn’t so tired, I would contact someone and relax with them, in a way, with a drink and a night of sex. When the woman called us to pick up the coffee, Henry laughed because my expression seemed to mark my minds whereabouts.

 He asked about my job and was very kind about it. I asked about his modeling career and I wasn’t surprised to know he was very young and had already worked for a lot of big brands. He was even the image for a perfume! It was then when I remembered his face from a bus stop and our conversation went on from there, talking about life experiences and how we each loved our work and how they were both very connected. I have to say I had a blast talking to him, probably because I would rarely speak with anyone at work. I needed someone that I could exchange at least some words with.

 Later that day, I learned from hearing Marco and Henry, that he had signed a modeling contract that would bring him a big check but would also make him an usual in our studio, as Marco would become something like his official photographer. He took a lot of headshots of Henry that first day and I noticed he would look for my gaze in order to lock his eyes with mine and share a short moment, sometimes with a smile in between it all. It was nice but, by the next day, I thought it was all in my head.

 That was until he stayed after a photo-shoot, telling Marco he needed our Wi-Fi to talk to his agent on the phone. What he really wanted to do was something much more direct and that worked too well for him: he approached me from the back and started touching me all over. His hands felt like tentacles, not stopping for a single second. Somehow, I knew that kind of behavior was not appropriate but I have to confess I decided to go along with it when I realize whom I was about to have sex with.

 And we did. It all happened on the hardwood floor of the studio and when we finished, I had no idea how to feel. It wasn’t like he did something awful during sex or that he left immediately. Henry actually stayed for a while, helping me put everything in order. He joined me in a cab and left me in front of my building. But that night, when I went to bed, I felt something was not completely right with the whole picture. I had liked it but maybe not all of it and I was simply too confused to think about it anymore.

 However, it kept happening and its still happening to this day. He has so many fans and there are even rumors that he’s dating some girl model that looks like a female version of him. It’s insane! And I haven’t asked anything about it because I don’t feel I have any permission to ask him anything about his life. After all, I’m not really part of it. I’m just the guy he decided to fuck this once and I feel this will end soon. I even think that it has happened before and I tell myself I cannot care at all about that.

 I have been living in somewhat of a safe ground for so long. I have fucked whomever I wanted and wherever I wanted. I called the shots in my life, deciding everything about it, especial how I decide to live it. I don’t let anyone else take any action in my life. Or so I thought at least…

 Every single time I’m close to him, I let go of my will to fight back. I know, somehow, that he’s not the right person for me. He’s simply not, in any way, shape or form. However, I keep going back. I keep falling and I have to ask myself if when I fall again, is the ground going to be there to stop me again?

Through the Alps

   The train’s movement woke me up as it pierced through the longest tunnel in the route. The trip from Italy to Germany can be quite annoying because of that, although you get to check out some beautiful sights in between the tunnels, so it’s not that bad. The very dim lights of the tunnel gave me an eerie glimpse of the people that were in the same cabin, all of them fast asleep, not disturbed by the movement as I was. It was right then when I heard someone rushing by the aisle, stumbling and then running off.

 I was about to yell and pull the door of the cabin making a lot of noise, but I remembered my friends were sleeping so I stood up and carefully pulled the door open. Once I was standing on the hallway, I close the door again and enjoyed the show the little lights on the floor of the train were doing. They turned on and off and on and off. It made the hallway look like some kind of disco. I looked down the hall but there was no one there, at least not where I could see. I decided to walk in the same direction as the person I had seen.

 I had to move from one car to the other. Apparently most people were asleep because there was not one noise breaking the silence, only the one of the train travelling on steel. The tunnel, I recalled, was so long it could take up to half an hour to traverse it completely. And if I was not mistaken, we had entered it less than ten minutes ago. So walked on knowing that natural light would take its time to comeback. The third car I entered was completely dark; the lights on the floor were not working.

 Then, I saw him. The lights on the tunnel were too weak to actually see anything but his form was noticeable. I stood there, on the entrance to the car and waited for the shadow to make its move. But it didn’t. It just stood there, most likely watching me, until it dropped something on the floor and my curiosity pushed me forward, in order to check the object closer. I walked half way and then the shadow bent its knees and fell to the floor, apparently unconscious. Something was wrong.

 Not only wrong but very wrong. The object on the floor shimmered with the dim yellow lights of the tunnel. It was obviously a knife, the kind you use to cut a steak. I remembered watching those on the restaurant car, a place I had only sat once earlier that day. It was a bit too expensive for me but I did remember watching someone eating a piece of juicy red meat with a knife just like that one. However, the handle on the one on the floor was glistening with dark red blood. Some of the silver edge had stains of it too. It was so strange to see that there, doing nothing but dripping blood.

 The train moved violently and it was then I realized what was going on and how serious it could be. I wanted to tell someone about it but I also realized I hadn’t seen one single person from the train company around the hallways. Neither a security person nor a waiter. There was no one around to denounce such a strange thing happening. Because bloody knives are only found on the floor of trains in novels or movies, but never in real life. What to do in that case, when there’s no one to turn to?

 The shadow then groaned. I got scared, walking back a little, abstaining myself from touching the bloody knife. I was about to turn around and look for someone to help, when the shadow said something. I had no idea what it said, because it wasn’t really articulating words. At least not words I understood. I got closer and the shadow coughed and suddenly looked up. I could not tell if it was a man or a woman, even if it was young or old. But I knew it was someone disturbed, as its eyes were red and mad.

 Then, the shadow spoke once again. I finally understood what language it was speaking but I had no idea what the words meant. I had seen several movies in German and I had even studied a bit of German back in college, but not enough to understand what the shadow was saying. Maybe it was asking for help or maybe it was begging for me to go away. I had no idea, as my trip through Europe had not contemplated helping dying or crazy people in dark trains while traversing a long tunnel.

 However, my instinct told me to help that person. So I got closer and tried to make something out of the words it was saying. By getting closer, I finally realized I was interacting with a young man, maybe half my age. He had delicate features covered by a large amount of very blonde hair. He was obviously of Germanic descent as the eyes that were looking at me were made of a very deep blue, almost the color that ice gets sometimes. Those eyes gave me a shiver.

 I spoke to him in English, asking if he needed any help. He wouldn’t answer, so I decided to speak a little slower. That seemed to do the trick because the young man started nodding violently, his eyes becoming even redder and more insane. It was quite disturbing to watch but not as disturbing as when he stood up and revealed his tainted clothes to me. He was wearing what any boy would ear in the summer: shorts and a stripes shirt. However, both were soaked in the same dark blood that covered the knife. I tied one and two together and realized I had a killer in front of me.

 I started breathing heavily but had to control it because the kid was getting worked up to. I relaxed so he did too. However, he did seem to be breathing a lot heavier than he should. He was obviously scared. Maybe he had killed his mother or father, or maybe a brother or sister. He had done it with a knife he had found close by and he had taken advantage of the tunnel to run away. But they were in a train and there are not that many places were you could hide. Ask Agatha Christie.

 For a moment, I was lost. I had no idea what to do. Yeah, maybe looking for a security agent and giving them the kid would be the smartest thing to do but it also seemed like a very wrong thing to do. The kid was obviously traumatized and maybe he had done what he had done out of self-defense. Maybe he had been bullied by someone or harassed by his family or at least one member of it. There were so many things to consider and reflect on before just running out of that car. It wasn’t simple.

 Then, as if in a dream or a religious movie, natural light filled the space. They had finally come out of that dreadful tunnel and the train was now advancing through the mountains by a large beautiful lake. The view out there was amazing but inside the train things were not exactly that. I realized then, with light, that the young man had not injured anyone else. Someone had injured him. He had blood pouring out of his body from a point around his stomach. It was something of a miracle to see him standing there.

 I finally did what took me so long to do: I ran out of the car and made noise, lots of noise. Finally a security guard appeared and I took him directly to the place where the knife and the boy were. When we got there, the young man had collapsed on the floor, falling on his face next to the knife. Some people on the neighboring cabins had stepped out and were screaming like lunatics. I ran to the boy and tried to wake him up but there was no point. He had bled out to death. I had acted too slowly.

 When we finally got to a train station, the body was brought out and sent the local morgue. Every single passenger was questioned by the police, especially me. I told them every single thing that had happened and they let me go without saying anything. I saw the parents on my way out of that place.

 The train departed later the following day. As curious as I was, I went one more time to the police station to ask about what had happened. Apparently, the autopsy had revealed the wound had been self-inflicted. The young man had committed suicide. I would think of him for the rest of my life.

Being wild

      As he went down on me, I started looking up at the ceiling. I had been drinking quite a lot and then, he had rolled a marihuana cigarette in seconds and we had smoked it together while laughing about people that we had met in our pasts. We shared a lot and we knew it but, for the night, we had decided to remember certain things and not the whole picture. We hadn’t discussed it with so many words but it was clear to both of us the moment he had stepped in my apartment that night.

 It felt nice what he was doing and, I have to say, he looked better than ever. He had recently entered a gym and the results were already showing. Granted, he might never become an Olympic athlete or nothing like that, but he did look amazing, just like I remembered him from the past, or even better. Back then; he was tall but very skinny, with a beautiful body that had virtually no curves. I never complained then because our relationship was based on love and he had been my first love.

 This time around, however, as I closed my eyes out of pleasure, I knew that everything we did was simply based on lust. That love that had united us so many years ago had been dead for almost as long as we had been apart one from the other. We had lived a lot and we hadn’t spoken much through the years, only following each other on Facebook and such social networks where you can take a peak on the lives of others, almost always just to have something to regret.

 But then, we reinitiated our relationship by talking at least once every two months and then more and more often. As the time passed, we realized we had grown to be very different people socially but very alike in everything that had to do with sex. Sometimes, we would chat online for hours, talking about what we would do together if we could and things like that. I didn’t mind at all, as I had vowed to be a single man for a long while. I was certain that kind of flirting wouldn’t amount to anything.

 Him, however, had a very different life going on. As we started talking, he wouldn’t say much about himself and would often prefer to talk about me or about the times we had been dating. But eventually, he had to confess that he was not only dating someone, but that he had been doing so for more than a couple of years. Furthermore, he hinted to me once that his partner had proposed to him with a ring and everything one would imagine, but that they had agreed on marrying after they were able to afford living together and everything that came with that.

 At first, I had decided to slowly pull away from that friendship of sorts we had developed. For a while, I couldn’t understand why someone that was almost married would talk to me like he did. Furthermore, it was outstanding to read how he described my body with a precision I would never imagine a surgeon to have, much less a boyfriend I had spent less than half a year with. It scared me but at the same time it felt very flattering, as no one else was telling me the things he said so often.

 Then, one day, he wrote to me on my cellphone one afternoon. It was a weekday and he just said “Hi”. I said the same thing and then we engaged on the typical conversation one has with any living person: we talked about what was going on with both our lives, what we were doing right then and there and, finally, the weather and such things most people don’t really care about. Then, after about fifteen minutes of filler, he finally said what he had been wanting to say for a while: “I’m alone in my house now…”

 I immediately understood what he meant with that. He clearly wanted me to drop by and have sex with him. In minutes, he confessed he had been thinking of me for some time and that he wanted to feel again what he had felt with me back in the day. He was very flattering, telling me a bunch of stuff I was very glad to read. He told me I had been the best lover he had ever had and that my body was ingrained in his memory forever. He said all the right words, in the right order.

 However, I was reluctant because I remembered his almost husband. And I have to confess something: I have not been an angel all my life. I have been known to go to bed with people that had previous engagements, me knowing about the whole thing. The difference this time was that I actually knew him and I had been in a relationship with him. Somehow, that changed it all and I had to lie in order not to meet him for sex. One part of me wanted to but my true soul gained the upper hand.

 Not that my decision changed anything. Especially not after, one night during a shopping spree with a friend, I stumbled upon my former boyfriend and his fiancée. We couldn’t just pretend we hadn’t run into each other, so we decided to shake hands and talked a little in the middle of the mall. I don’t know how, but I ended up chatting it up with his partner and I have to say I found him to be a very nice person. He wasn’t the type of man I had envisioned for my former lover, but he was undeniable a good person and I understood why that relationship had formed and had lived through the years.

 However, I had no idea why the guy wanted to cheat on that nice man. I didn’t understand it at all and didn’t understood either when he called me out of the blue in order to invite me to a “game night” at their place. According to my former boyfriend, it had been his fiancée’s idea. I struggled with the decision of whether to go or not but finally the decision was taken for me, when the fiancée himself called me on my cellphone and begged for my presence. After that, I couldn’t say no.

 The evening, I have to say, was pretty tame. They drank conservatively and their jokes were just like their level of general fun: just average. Other friends of theirs were there, thank God, so the evening passed without a hitch until my ex-lover pulled me aside on the kitchen, touched my genitals over the fabric of the pants I was wearing, and told to my ear that he really wanted to fuck around with me. When he realized nothing could happen there, he told me the story he had created for his almost husband.

 He hadn’t told him that I was a former lover or boyfriend. He told him we had gone to college together and that we had gone out several times together because of mutual friends. But his lies proved unnecessary, because his fiancée never asked anything. He was being a gracious host and a nice person overall, not drilling into people’s lives or anything like that. That made me feel even worse when I got home. So that’s why I’m staring at the ceiling right now, trying not to think a lot or feel much.

 When he came back to kiss me on the lips, I did it in a very distracted fashion. He had come in to my apartment out of nowhere, as his fiancée had left the city for a couple of days because of a death in the family. He was in mourning, who know where, as the love of his life was getting rid of all his clothes and my clothes as well. Yes, I felt guilt but then I realized, or told myself at least, that none of that was my doing. I wasn’t the one doing something wrong, or so I told myself.

 As I had sex with him, I tried to dedicate my senses to the moment. The marihuana kicked in right when it had to. I heard his moans and I felt the heart of his body very close to mine. And we spent hours doing the same thing, in different ways.

 When he left early the following day, I realized that I was one kind of person. And I have to tell everyone that I’m not ashamed of that. I am the person that fucks someone that wants it and I’m the person that does something knowing the consequences and ramifications it could have, if any.

One kind of Christmas

   Last Christmas, he came out of the bathroom disguised as Santa Claus. I laughed at first but then realized it was supposed to be a sexy thing between the two of us. He did a striptease for me and then began to pull some presents of a big red bag he had brought out of our bedroom with him. A couple were sex toys, intended for both of use whenever we wanted to spice things up in the bedroom, not that we ever needed that. But one of the gifts was something else, something I wasn’t expecting.

 It was a little red box with only a simple ring inside. It had a smooth surface, resembling a little donut made of silver. When I saw it closer the next day, I smiled thinking he had been a very smart man by buying the one that I liked and then he would keep the gold one. Each ring was unique, as according to them we were different and that made us a better couple, but inside each little piece of jewelry, there was the name of the other one, the other person forming the relationship.

 That way, he would always be close to me and I would always be close to him. I changed from been excited and, frankly, very horny, to being on the edge of my seat, crying in silence, as I had never thought such a gift would come my way. I mean, yes, we had talked about it before but it had never been serious at all. I had no stable job, living from one thing to the next and his salary was just enough to survive for a month. His bank account was always empty by the time he received his next paycheck.

So marriage or whatever one would call it, wasn’t precisely something we had been planning on. We didn’t even lived together, not exactly at least. He would spend a couple of weeks in my place and then I would spend some time in his place. He always left socks or underwear in my place, in my drawers and on the washing machine. And my favorite sweater always had a certain tendency to end up in his closet, although I was certain that had to do with him loving it as much as I did.

 We wore different sizes of clothing but we sometimes shared, especially in the morning when it was difficult to find what one had wore the night before. I had answered phone calls or the door many times wearing only one of his work shirts. He always told me not to do that because then he would need to either iron them or send them to the cleaners, and none was a choice he enjoyed. But then he gave me mixed signals when he had sex on the couch just because he had seen me wearing nothing but that. It was funny and exciting, two words that described what we had together.

 The reason why I didn’t accept his proposal right away was the fact that his company was sending him far away, to a symposium or something like that in a city with beaches and many beautiful people to watch. He tried to convince me to go and I needed no convincing at all, the problem was the money, as I had no savings to just take a short holiday. I had to look for work everyday and there was no option for me to stop doing that, unless I won the lottery or something as insane as that.

 So I asked him to give me some time to think about it, because he wasn’t going to be there for a while and I had to be sure I wanted to change our relationship in such a way. I made it very clear that I didn’t wanted to end the relationship and that my decision wasn’t motivated by me not loving him anymore or something of the sorts. It was exactly the opposite: I loved him so much that I really wanted to make the best choice for us both, as marrying would be a huge thing for the both of us.

 He left for his symposium the day after Christmas. We had been in bed for hours before that, making love but also kissing, holding each other and enjoying each other’s silence. I loved him deeply and wanted the best for him, I really did. And I knew he had asked me to marry him because he was in love with me and he wanted, in a way, to make sure what we had together was never going to change. It was understandable so that’s why we tried not to talk about it too much, until I told him one-way or the other.

 Oddly enough, I felt devastated when the taxi came and he left in it, smiling to me, trying to cheer me up. But it was right then when I realized my mind had been made up for a while. Who was I kidding? Yes, money and all that stuff is always a problem but, there are some things that you just have to do, no matter what and being sure to stay with the person that you love forever, is one of those things. So I went up the stairs, running to my apartment, and I wrote him I would be happy to marry him.

 He didn’t say a word to me until two hours later when he made a bunch of people on his plane dance and cheer because of our engagement. He told me he would have a glass of wine and celebrate in his hotel room jumping around. Sure enough, he did call me later that night, while I was getting to go to bed. He was so happy and looked even more beautiful than always. It was contagious to see him smile so much, asking all sorts of silly questions and wishing me to dream with angels and with him. And I did have a dream about him, a really good one.

 One week passed and we tried to write each other everyday but it was very difficult. His office had decided to stay a while there after the symposium, as their whole goal had been to open an office in that city. In order to do that, they proposed him a raise in exchange for more work and a lot of effort put into making the whole new office thing work. According to his estimates, which he told me half asleep, the whole thing would take at least a month, maybe even a little more.

 He tried to make smile after telling me the bad news but I just couldn’t. Deciding had seemed easy once I knew hat I felt but then I realized I actually needed him to be around in order for the whole thing to work. He had asked me to look at restaurants to reserve in order for us and our parents to celebrate after getting formally married, but it all seemed pointless with him so far away. Besides, he always looked too tired or too distracted to talk about anything related to the wedding. So why bother?

 Then, the unthinkable happened. As his stay on the beach city turned into its third week, I received a phone call that changed my life. A company had been looking for me because they had an interest in new talent to come work with them. Apparently, they had gotten a copy of my resume and that had been enough for them to call me and schedule an appointment. I was very nervous throughout the whole thing but the people seemed very nice and comprehensive of everything I told them.

 Strangely, the day he decided to call and tell me his office had asked him to stay there to head the new office, the people from the interview had called me to offer me a full-time job which paid more than I would ever imagine someone would pay to a creative person. I almost didn’t have the courage to tell him, but I did. We had to talk about it; we had to make a choice. Either he stayed in his old job, something that made him mad and depressed, or I would stay jobless for longer, maybe forever.

 We decided to think about it and talk another day. Three days passed until we got the chance to talk again. He had been busy and, frankly, me too. He told me he had decided to accept the job and I told him my first day was already scheduled.

 Nothing was heard in either end of the call, for a while. His face was grim and so was mine. We did not want to day what we knew had already happened, because it would mean it was a fact. We didn’t wanted to accept things had already changed, and that was too late for us.