I cling to Jesse. I don’t want to let him go.

I’ve lived enough life to know that when something feels this good, I have to savor it because tomorrow, that thing that created such passion, such a beautiful sensation within me, can turn on me—twist into something painful, cruel.

Despite how I’ve caved to my desire, my hunger for this experience with Jesse, I can’t escape my awareness of what this could mean down the road for my relationship with Ty.

Yet there’s another part of me that’s aware that’s already been screwed over, that no matter what I try to do, how I try to mend things, there will always be this distance between us, so what can it hurt? Why deprive myself of something that feels this right over something I can’t do anything about?

Once I finally manage to pry my hands off Jesse, I discard the condom in the trash can in the bathroom. As I reenter the bedroom, Jesse’s lying on his back, breathing steadily, gazing up at the ceiling with a smile across his face, like he’s trying to process everything that just happened. He runs a hand through his hair, then relaxes his arm over his head. Turning to me, his smile expands even further. He can’t know how pleased I am that he enjoyed himself.

Now when he reflects on it, he’ll look back at ease and someone who generally cared, rather than some bastard who didn’t give a fuck about how he felt or if he enjoyed it.

“Is this the awkward part where we try to figure out what we do now?” Jesse asks before rolling onto his side.

I hop into bed and stretch out alongside him. “I think another shower is in order for sure,” I tell him, resting a hand on his face, almost without meaning to. I caress my thumb down to his chin, running it through the dip in the middle, studying those lips, their curvature, the light shade of pink.

“So how does that compare with messing around with girls?” I ask him.

“Kind of amazing.”

“Kind of?”

He pushes my shoulder. “Don’t get all cocky now or anything.”

“I think you like it when I’m cocky.”

“Maybe a little bit. I had a really good time. I wouldn’t mind having that same good time again.”

“I wouldn’t mind that either,” I confess.

His gaze sinks, and I wonder if he’s thinking about the same thing I’m thinking. It almost feels like we’ve tricked each other into believing this has nothing to do with Ty, but I’m not sure I want that illusion to end. I don’t want anything to stand in the way of what we’ve realized we can work out together.

“Like we said,” Jesse tells me, “we have a few days to enjoy it at least, right?”

I hear worry in his tone, like he’s afraid of me refusing him, not granting him this experience again, which obviously is a hell of a lot better than if I had frightened him, freaked him out, sent him running. There’s a terrible part of me that just wants to give Jesse what he wants again and again and again…as much as he wants it. And I’m kind of stunned he’s taken an interest in me.

“After what just happened,” I tell him, “I think I’m developing somewhat of an infatuation with you.”

“An infatuation?” he says, his lips curling upward.

“Now who’s the cocky one?”

The sound of his laughter hits my ears just right, like those sounds he made when I was inside him. It’s the confirmation I need…to know I’m making him happy.

But I can still see the worry in his expression, that worry we both share, a worry that it seems neither of us wants to deal with in this moment.

I put my hand on his face and draw him near for a kiss. It’s a distraction, a way to not face the truth. Not now. Not while we’re having such a good time.

Life is so fucking complicated, but this isn’t. It’s simple. I understand it. He understands it. Can’t we focus on that? I know that’s irresponsible, yet Jesse makes me want to be totally selfish.

What does it matter if I do that just for a little while, which is all we have anyway?

We shower, and this time, I don’t try to push him under another showerhead. In fact, I find I have a hard time keeping my hands off him.

“Look at that,” he says, tapping my dick lightly.

I’m fully aroused again, as if I’m ready to go again, and he’s starting to get a chubby as well.

“Do you want to head back into the bedroom?” he asks.

“Why? Do you need to head back into the bedroom?”

I wrap my arms around him, cupping his ass in my hands, gripping tightly.

He does the same, sliding his fingers between my cheeks. I push away quickly, instinctively, in a way I can tell surprises him. Up until that point, it’s all been playful and fun—hot, mad, rabid desire—but in an instant he reminded me of my own vulnerabilities and stirred a darkness that can take something so fun and light and bring out the pain within me.

“Um,” he says, “do you not do that?”

“I’m just not comfortable bottoming,” I explain, keeping my distance from him—something that I can tell is throwing him.

He eyes me peculiarly. “Oh, is that like a thing?” he asks. “Like, that uncomfortable that when I touch it, you step back?”

“It’s not something I enjoy.”

“Okay,” he says, but I can tell by the way he says it that he doesn’t really understand and he’s going back and questioning everything. What had been fun, frisky, and seemingly without many obstacles between us has suddenly become something else.

Like I thought before, those things that feel so good turn on you, and as it seems so appropriate for Jesse, his talent for getting to me, hitting all my buttons, has finally found the trigger that has the power to warp everything we’d experienced together.

I hate myself as I watch his expression shift to something so different than before. He’s confused, uncertain, realizes the limits I have, the walls I put up, so he begins, “It was fine for me to do that for you, but you aren’t even willing to do it the other way?”

When he puts it like that, it makes me feel like a real bastard. “I just don’t do that. I’m a total top, as they say. What you experienced, what you enjoyed, it doesn’t do that for me.”

“Oh.” I can hear the disappointment in his tone.

I hate myself. All I’ve wanted was to make him feel good, to make him happy, and now I’ve made things weird between us. Such is life, because nothing can feel too good, nothing can be too amazing. There always has to be something to come and fuck it all up.

I want to ease the tension. I want to try and make him feel better, but I find I am up against my own mental barriers. He stirred this anxiety within me without even realizing it.

While I’m trying to throw up my defenses, I’m also battling another war inside my mind, a series of images playing out over and over again, throwing me back to a different time, a different life, a different me. It’s a part of my world that makes me feel guilty and ashamed, and as much as I want to wrap him in my arms and tell him he didn’t do anything wrong, right now there’s a part of me that blames him for forcing me through this painful series of emotions, that has me wanting to do nothing more than curl up into a ball in the corner of the shower, make him leave me alone so I can recover.

Instead, I ball my hands into fists to stifle the trembling I can feel coming over me.

“I think I need to get dried off,” I force out of my mouth.

The atmosphere between us has completely shifted, transformed, and it’s all my fault, because I’m so fucked up.