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There’s something weird about the way he only ever smiles at me. No one ever notices, but when the cameras are rolling his two crooked front teeth gleam and his lips stretch outwards. When they’re not, when it’s dark and the blackout curtains are drawn over every window and we’ve had a couple of drinks, his smile looks different. It’s made of a spry downwards turn of the corners of his mouth and lips pursed over his teeth in an almost shy manner. His eyes sparkle not with shining stage lights, but with genuine affection.
It is nearly frightening to see. To know you’re the only one who has ever seen it, a weight on your shoulders that only seems to make you lighter than air.
For now, I smile just as I always do. I laugh with a high-pitched sputter of giggles the same way I do in front of a hundred thousand audience members and a camera crew. The only thing that ever changes is my heart, but that’s on the inside. There’s no way for anyone to see the way it beats faster and faster when I look at him under the light of a bedside lamp as we lie against the headboard of his bed.
Maybe, though, he can tell. I wouldn’t be surprised.
It may be cliché, but I used to kneel by my bed and pray to God. I would ask for His protection and His love. I have to admit, I would also occasionally ask for a gaming console and a report card that would make my parents proud, but that’s unimportant.
I still pray. A lot of it is for my group, my coworkers, and my supporters. Some of it is just as selfish as a young me’s stupid wishes. It makes my cheeks burn fiercely to cry out my problems to someone who is telling me to do something about them myself. I am too guilty and too afraid. Maybe it’s because I don’t want to solve them.
There’s no chance I’ll admit it.
Three instances of standing in the shower, watching myself in the reflection of sliding water droplets with bony hands moving over all the right places. Fourteen scenarios where I caught myself staring at things he probably wouldn't want me staring at. Countless times waking up with sweat-covered strands of hair and a red face, trying to cool down but finding it takes too long.
I demand God to take it all away from me. There is no answer.
Sometimes the dreams are so real I wake up and can't comprehend that I’m in my own tangled bedsheets and not his.
It all comes to a close one summer night.
We're drunk off the endless screams of South American concert-goers and way-too-expensive wine. He wants to keep drinking, so he orders another bottle and brings it up to my room. I say nothing as he walks through the door and sprawls himself on the edge of the bed, chugging the dark liquid like it's ambrosia, a drink worthy of gods. He makes me think of something like religion when I see his Adam's apple bob up and down and his spit-slick tongue trace his lips as he licks off what dripped down his chin.
My mouth is inexplicably hanging open, cold air from the AC blowing in and making my lips chapped. I can feel the jagged edge of his gaze slicing through me, taking in my fearful eyes and twitching fingertips.
His footsteps thud four times. Our socked feet are touching, and he leans in so very close that his bangs tangle with mine. I don't think he says anything.
He doesn't have to, not when I know he wants me to let go of the guilt at that moment. And like a faithful follower, I do what he asked of me without hesitation.
He guides me to the bed, lowering the both of us on top of the rose-scented white comforter. In turn, I guide his hand to my head, and he tugs at my scalp gently. I want more, I’m greedy.
My fingers are not shaking when they brush at his waist, not vibrating with tremors when they caress his chest over his throbbing heart. He is pliant under my touch and I want to give him something, anything. Proof that I am dedicated.
I yank him into a sitting position by the collar of his shirt as I slide down to the ground. My knees make a thumping sound as I shuffle between his legs. I kiss his thighs through the cool fabric of his sweatpants and rub around his legs, fingers traveling up and up and up.
Before I take it farther, I clasp my hands together in prayer. We make eye contact, and he pleads just as I plead.
Quickly, the drawstrings of his pants are untied and I tug down the fabric covering his blushed skin. His fingernails rake over my scalp and his entire body tremors as I finally take the head of his cock between my lips, tongue pressed flat to where his precum leaks out and mixes with my saliva.
I take my time with it, licking stripes up and down the length of his cock and circling my hands around the base. He calls for more, and I give it to him.
Jaw hanging open, I take it all at once. My throat pulses with the new sensation and I slide back and forth, using the slick surface to my advantage. Suddenly, his hands lift off of my head and lead me back, off of his cock. He’s leaning down and I catch a glimpse of his tear-filled eyes and dilated pupils before he steals a kiss. We part, the fluids on my lips stringing between us and he lifts me up until I’m stretching as far as I can to kiss him, hands gripping his bare knees for leverage. Our tongues wrap around each other and I bathe in the music that his high-pitched whimpers and my breathy moans make when they resonate in the same space.
After a long moment, I open my eyes to hunger reflected in his dark eyes, a picture of my expression. There is no instruction needed for me to dive back down and take his cock down my throat. With a few more thrusts into the soft part of my mouth and hands grasping at my neck, wrapping around and choking me, he cums in the hot opening of my mouth and I swallow hard around his encircling fingers.
Before I let him take care of me, I savor the heavenly feeling and the golden taste that I never thought I would get to experience. It’s like a blessing and a curse all tied in one, and I have never felt more satiated.
My knees burned and my scalp felt almost raw from all the tugging.
He gently pushed me under the cool stream of the shower afterward. He held me, and when I peered into the droplets on the wall with my blurry vision, I saw much more than hands on my skin. I saw love in the way he cradled the back of my neck when he washed the soap out of my hair and I saw sweetness in the way he pressed his lips ever so lightly to my swollen ones.
Finally, I crack a smile. It's different, and it's not all that visible. But he looks into my eyes and sees the way the corners raised a little and how my pupils grew larger than life and he knows it's different. My special smile for him, and his for me.
This time I won't ask for forgiveness. I believe in God, and I also believe that He knows how my blood churns through my veins for one person and one person only. If heaven is for eternity, and mortal life is not, I think I'm satisfied talking to God when I get there. I can't be sure, but perhaps He won't even need to say a word. He'll see the smile and He will recognize it and all the sins that come along, but He'll see the passion and the love and the sacrifice too.
That's what real faith looks like.