He can make me love something just by showing me the energy with which he loves it.
After an agonizing month of waiting, of doubting and second-guessing, Joseph found one Jack Benjamin at his apartment door. No warning, no promises. He brought only Chinese food and a smile.
"Are you going to let me in or shall I scandalize myself the hallway?"
Joseph hadn't noticed how he'd locked the door behind him, pulled the heavy curtains across the windows in his wake. It didn't matter what Jack did, he did it with wicked charisma and such magnetism Joseph could do not help but bend to his gravity. They hadn't made it through dinner.
Jack had always been bold. Fearless. He came at you like a force of nature and there was hardly time to realize what you'd welcomed before it hit. And then it was too late, of course. You were already lost, swept up in him and praying to God not to survive but only to keep it from ending.
But the confidence he flashed all the world faltered here and there with Joseph. A hand paused at the slightest note of pleasure, moments of stopped breath at the sight of him, as if the other man continually surprised him or Jack surprised himself. He would try to cover it, pulling his true self out of view at the last instant and sliding on another facade. But Joseph always saw and silently accepted. Loved. Those secret glimpses were his alone.
**
Jack puzzled over the other man's smiles. Obsessed. He agonized over all that Joseph knew and the kingdoms he could destroy with such knowledge. Trust came slowly, in bits chipped off Jack's armored skin with softness and patience.
Sometimes he would come and be unable to touch Joseph. Pacing like a panther's shadow in the dimly-lit room, ashamed to so much as look at the small of the man's back or the broad curve of his shoulder. And Joseph, in his quiet way, would inch closer as the night wore on, close enough to end the evening against his lover, a steady weight to stay Jack until the tension waned, fear abated. Some nights that would be enough.
Others, it wouldn't. Joseph would never see where the rage in him started -- Jack would never talk about it, never explain, just leave Joseph to wonder what he had done or where he had failed. A call, a date scheduled, Jack would be late and halfway to the bedroom push Joseph away in a whirlwind of cruelties. Or no call at all; he'd come home to Jack in his apartment, already drunk or just already hurting, there for confessions he wouldn't make and comfort he'd only mock. When Joseph reached for him then, it was a gambit. A test of courage. Reach a hand into the darkness and hope what you couldn't see was need, not the guillotine. Joseph would slip an arm around his lover, lean gently against the other's back, and wait for the pain to melt to his touch or boil over into viciousness and violence.
"How can you touch me?"
The disgust in his eyes, his voice, Joseph felt like glass in the blood. His warm arms hesitated, then drew back; his eyes met the floor.
"I mean how can you stand to?" Disgust, of course, Jack never felt for anyone but himself.
**
On better days they could lie together for hours with the curtains open and the light pouring in. Jack would talk to him, just talk, telling stories of his best men on the front, of his stubbornly virtuous sister, of better days and future glories or nothing at all.
"Sometimes I see in you what would make men follow you into certain death," Joseph had mused in words breathed against his lover's side.
"My god-like figure?"
"I'm serious, Jack."
"My charm and wit, then."
"You don't even see it." A smile pressed against his skin in a kiss. "So you don't know to hide it. That's how I know it's real."
"Are you going to let me in or shall I scandalize myself the hallway?"
Joseph hadn't noticed how he'd locked the door behind him, pulled the heavy curtains across the windows in his wake. It didn't matter what Jack did, he did it with wicked charisma and such magnetism Joseph could do not help but bend to his gravity. They hadn't made it through dinner.
Jack had always been bold. Fearless. He came at you like a force of nature and there was hardly time to realize what you'd welcomed before it hit. And then it was too late, of course. You were already lost, swept up in him and praying to God not to survive but only to keep it from ending.
But the confidence he flashed all the world faltered here and there with Joseph. A hand paused at the slightest note of pleasure, moments of stopped breath at the sight of him, as if the other man continually surprised him or Jack surprised himself. He would try to cover it, pulling his true self out of view at the last instant and sliding on another facade. But Joseph always saw and silently accepted. Loved. Those secret glimpses were his alone.
**
Jack puzzled over the other man's smiles. Obsessed. He agonized over all that Joseph knew and the kingdoms he could destroy with such knowledge. Trust came slowly, in bits chipped off Jack's armored skin with softness and patience.
Sometimes he would come and be unable to touch Joseph. Pacing like a panther's shadow in the dimly-lit room, ashamed to so much as look at the small of the man's back or the broad curve of his shoulder. And Joseph, in his quiet way, would inch closer as the night wore on, close enough to end the evening against his lover, a steady weight to stay Jack until the tension waned, fear abated. Some nights that would be enough.
Others, it wouldn't. Joseph would never see where the rage in him started -- Jack would never talk about it, never explain, just leave Joseph to wonder what he had done or where he had failed. A call, a date scheduled, Jack would be late and halfway to the bedroom push Joseph away in a whirlwind of cruelties. Or no call at all; he'd come home to Jack in his apartment, already drunk or just already hurting, there for confessions he wouldn't make and comfort he'd only mock. When Joseph reached for him then, it was a gambit. A test of courage. Reach a hand into the darkness and hope what you couldn't see was need, not the guillotine. Joseph would slip an arm around his lover, lean gently against the other's back, and wait for the pain to melt to his touch or boil over into viciousness and violence.
"How can you touch me?"
The disgust in his eyes, his voice, Joseph felt like glass in the blood. His warm arms hesitated, then drew back; his eyes met the floor.
"I mean how can you stand to?" Disgust, of course, Jack never felt for anyone but himself.
**
On better days they could lie together for hours with the curtains open and the light pouring in. Jack would talk to him, just talk, telling stories of his best men on the front, of his stubbornly virtuous sister, of better days and future glories or nothing at all.
"Sometimes I see in you what would make men follow you into certain death," Joseph had mused in words breathed against his lover's side.
"My god-like figure?"
"I'm serious, Jack."
"My charm and wit, then."
"You don't even see it." A smile pressed against his skin in a kiss. "So you don't know to hide it. That's how I know it's real."