Not Like That
d+b
5.526 words
two parts
Me and Dom-we’re best mates. Who kiss.
I don’t even remember exactly how it started, or who started it, or when it started, but it’s been going on for a while now, you know? Where we just kiss each other on the mouth. We don’t ask if we can do it. It never needs to be done. The subject is never discussed. That seems to be against the rules. We just do it.
On the lips!
I don’t understand! I’m just kind of like… What kinds of friends kiss each other on the lips?! We’re both guys. We’re both straight. So it’s not like that. And it’s not like they’re big kisses. They never last for longer than about… four… seconds. I mean. Maybe five. And they’re never French, of course. We’re mates, for Christ’s sake! We like women! Not-no. We don’t make out. Good lord, no.
But the fact remains: we kiss, and nobody else does. Not Sean and Elijah, not Orlando and… anyone. Dom doesn’t kiss anyone but me. I’ve never even seen him kiss a girl. Then again, he’s never seen me kiss a girl either, I don’t think.
~
So one night we’re just kind of leaning on each other after all our make-up and prosthetics are taken off, still sitting in the trailer and watching Sean and Elijah turn back into humans. Though for Elijah, of course, I suppose it’s never quite a full transformation.
“What’re you doing tonight, Bill?” Dom asks me, grabbing a pillow and folding himself around it. He nuzzles his head against me and it almost tingles, sort of like when a pretty girl touches you, only not because…
It’s Dom!
“Well, I was just going to ask you, Dom,” I tell him. “We could fetch a time machine and travel to some place where we won’t have to wake up at four.”
“Lij,” Dom says, “time to spill the beans. Where do you keep it?”
But Sean says to him, “The time machine? Kitchen; under the sink, behind the garbage can,” before Elijah can even answer.
“Sean!” Lij hisses, trying to slug Sean from a three foot distance while his foot is being massaged. “We can’t have Billy and Dom fucking with the space-time continuum! Think of the consequences!”
I look down at Dom; his head’s kind of snuggled against my chest. He looks up at me, as well, and we grin at the possibilities of fucking with the space-time continuum. Then Dom reaches up with his torso and neck to kiss me briefly, and he drops back down to my chest.
Elijah laughs a little bit. “How long have you guys been dating?”
“We’re not,” I tell him. “Haven’t you ever seen best mates who kiss before?” I haven’t, of course, but maybe that’s just me. I’m sure there are other examples somewhere.
“Not in the States,” Elijah tells us. “Or is it a gay thing?”
“Elijah, they’re not-” Sean starts, but.
Dom interrupts, as is always prone to happen, I suppose. “Sure, Elijah. It’s a thing gay British men who aren’t going out do, is they kiss each other. We also shag every night, actually, but we’re still just friends.” He kisses me again a little bit longer than the first time and then asks me, “Isn’t that right, Bills?”
So I give Elijah and Sean my best intelligent nod, then break the joke with a grin and tell them, “Nah, we’re not really gay.”
“But you have sex?” Sean splutters while one of the make-up girls removes his ears, which are pink at the tips, of course.
“No!” I laugh, then kiss Dom myself.
He smiles up at me in this kind of lazy haze, and there’s that almost-tingly feeling again. I’ve been getting this feeling a lot lately, actually. It’s pretty nice.
~
It’s finally the end of the week, and Pete is having this barbeque to which Dom hasn’t arrived yet. I’ve called Dom once or twice, but he hasn’t answered. Everyone’s been asking me where he is and it’s kind of strange to have to tell them that I don’t know.
“Billy,” Sean says-he pretty much looks at me like I’m about to throw a temper tantrum, but I’m not the least bit mad.
“Sean?”
“I think I need to ask you about something, and I really really hope I’m not overstepping any boundaries by doing so, but…” He takes a sweeping glance over Pete’s backyard and everyone in it. “Do you want to head out front for a minute?”
“Yeah, sure,” I comply, “but I don’t know what you’re on about.” I figure it must be quite important, you know? Sean usually can tell if something’s amiss. Although I can’t figure out why he still looks so afraid of me while we walk through the gates to the front lawn.
The sun has just set and the street lights are blinking on; the air mostly smells like hamburgers and Sean kind of clasps his hands and covers his mouth with them before speaking. “What exactly is going on with you and Dom?”
“Em.” Does Sean know something that I don’t? “What do you mean, exactly?”
That’s better-he relaxes a bit. “Wull, I don’t know, it’s just very odd to me that you guys kiss all the time, and yet you don’t think that’s weird.”
“It’s not.”
“See? And I think that maybe… Dom doesn’t feel exactly the way you think he does…? So be careful, Billy.”
Best mates. Who kiss. What more to it is that? I mean, I know Dom better than anyone, don’t I? Wouldn’t I know how he feels better than Sean?
“Look, Billy, that’s just what I’ve picked up lately, and I don’t know if I’m right or not, but I really do have a feeling that Dom…” He shrugs and seems to be finished.
“Dom what?” I ask him.
“Dom est dans la maison!” Dom calls, sort of jogging up to us. He slings an arm around each of our shoulders and-kisses me, of course, but that’s a given-and Sean shoots me this last little foreboding kind of look. “Sorry I’m late, mates, but I have an announcement to make.”
We walk back out to the crowd; I throw one of my arms around Dom and tell him, “Do you know how many people have asked me where you were, you cunt?”
“S’like we’re married,” he replies. “Don’t you just hate that?” And a kiss.
See? Dom is straight, absolutely, because he says he hates that people think we’re married. Not that people think we’re married, I mean they just kind of think it’s like we’re married or something. I think.
“So,” Dom shouts to everyone, letting go of me to step onto a bench. “I apologize for my late arrival, but I was out making a very important purchase. Which one of you lovely ladies wants the first ride on my brand spanking new motorbike?”
Motorbike? Why didn’t I hear it when Dom drove up, and why didn’t I see it? He didn’t even say anything about it until we got back here! And he wants to let one of the ladies ride it first, before me?
I scan the backyard, which is now, thanks to Dom, full of shouting guys and girls. There are far more guys than girls, of course. Dom nods smugly at them all. “Who loves me the most?”
You know when you’re kind of in an introspective mood, and you can’t really join in with the yelling of everybody else around you? I feel sort of like that, so I don’t scream ‘Me!’ like the surrounding multitudes-instead, I tug at Dom’s hand, which is hanging at about the level of my chest, and look up at him with my best watery Pippin eyes.
“Billy?” he grins. “Do you love me the most?”
I nod, kind of. Yeah, I nod. I suppose it really is true, after all. Everybody protests and tries to get Dom to look at them, but he doesn’t; I think it’s Elijah who shouts, “Prove it!”
Letting go of Dom’s big hand, I step up onto the bench with him and tell them, “If I was stranded on a desert island, and I could only take one of you with me-it would be Dom.”
My smile drops a little bit when I find Sean in the crowd giving me that kind of… that look. I check Dom; his ears are pink and he’s already moving in to kiss me. It’s just a peck. “There ya go,” he says. “Good choice, Bills!”
We hop off the bench and pop out again, ignoring, for the most part, all the booing and jeering at our heels. “Yeah,” I tell Dom, “well. Then again, I might have to kill myself if I were stranded on a desert island with just you.”
“Thanks, Bill. Good to know you care.”
“Any time, Dommie, any time.” I kiss him, but this time it’s on the cheek because we’re still walking.
“Isn’t she gorgeous?” he asks me as we approach the motorbike. He tosses me a helmet and puts another on his head so he can get on and stroke the beast.
“Yeah, it’s quite incredible. Pity you bought it, Dom. She’ll get all junked up in no time.” I pull on the helmet and then sort of carefully climb on behind him so I don’t upset the balance or anything. I scoot closer; my arms lock around his waist.
He puts the key in and revs it up; it seems quite loud, but in a good way. “Ready for the ride of your life?”
I tighten my arms. “Go on, then!”
“Are you scared, Bills?”
“Well now I am, that you asked. You’re going to crash, aren’t you, just to scare the piss out of me.”
The engine roars-Dom shrugs and tells me, “You’d best hold on tighter than that, Pissy-Legs,” and we take off without a single particle of air between us.
~
The next night, since we have a two day weekend, a few of us go out to see a play-it’s something I’d never heard of before-and then we head to a cozy little twenty-four hour restaurant.
So we’ve been here for about thirty minutes and I think I’m drunk.
Except that deep down in the pit of my liver, I know that one pint of beer does not justify the amount of self-control I should've lost in order to put myself into this situation. See… Dom is trying to feed me ice cream with honey and cinnamon on it.
Cinnamon is the bane of my existence. I don’t care what form it comes in; I hate it in gum, I hate it in toothpaste, I hate it straight, I hate it in puddings, I hate it on breakfast foods and I most certainly hate it on ice cream, so I don’t know why Dom is bothering. Well, I guess the kind of real question is… why am I letting him bother?
“Come now, Billy,” Dom says, “open wide for the airplane!” He buzzes it around on the spoon in front of my face.
I laugh, even though I know that’s against the rules; I’m not supposed to encourage him. “I’m not hungry, Dom,” I tell him with my hand over my mouth, “and I’m not eating your cinnamon!”
“But you said you would try it.” He starts working at my hand, so I slap my other hand up there, too, for reinforcement. But he’s quick, as well, and he tries to set the spoon down-I don’t really think anyone’s watching us because they don’t seem to notice that he drops it into his beer. Then he goes at my hands full force.
He’d better not tickle me, please don’t tickle me, please please pleasepleasepleaseplease-
SHIT! And I’m laughing too hard now to focus and he manages to slip a spoonful of beer-flavored ice cream into my mouth, keeping one hand tickling me right up until he removes the spoon.
I think my face must sour; beer and ice cream were never meant to cross paths. I search quite desperately for somewhere to spit it out, but nothing’s available. So. I swallow it. “Dom!” I choke at him, “That was by far the most disgusting combination of foods I have ever tasted! It was so bad, I didn’t even taste the cinnamon!” I grab the nearest glass of water, which happens to belong to Orlando-but, I mean, it’s not like he’s drinking any of it-and I take four or five long gulps.
When I set the glass back on the table and open my eyes again, Dom is smiling at me with a clean spoon and a fresh bite of ice cream, cinnamon and all, sans beer this time, and he grabs my jaw and shoves it into my mouth before I can even think to close it.
It’s! It’s… actually kind of good. But I won’t give Dom that satisfaction, of course, so I follow my gut instinct, which is to spit it all over Dom’s face.
That gets everyone’s attention.
“He tried to feed me cinnamon!” I sputter to them all. Most of them are laughing at us. I look at Dom; he’s still kind of indignant, like… well, like someone’s just spit ice cream all over his face. “Oh, Dom-mate, I’m sorry,” I snicker, then pick up one of the paper napkins and wipe at his face.
“Hey!” Orlando calls. “… Where’s my water?”
I pause mid-swipe to look back at the glass. I guess I kind of drank all of it without realizing. “Sorry, I’ll buy you another one.”
“You’d better,” he answers. “And don’t spit into it, Billy.”
He thinks everyone laughs at his joke, but really, I think they’re laughing at the fact that he doesn’t understand water is free. “I won’t, I promise.” And then I turn back to Dom, whose face is still speckled with ice cream.
“I can’t believe you just spit all over my face,” Dom tells me while I dab away, “just because of a tiny bit of cinnamon. You won’t even give it a chance! When is the last time you actually digested cinnamon, Bill?”
“Nineteen ninety-three.”
“What if you like it now? How would you know?”
“I don’t like it now. I just know.” I get rid of the ice-creamy napkin in favor of a clean one, which I dip into the very bottom of Orli’s water glass and then use it to work away at the sticky spots on Dom’s face.
He gives me that kind of skeptical expression, then manoeuvres his hand back to the ice cream. I shut my lips tight, but he’s not going for my mouth; he’s going for his. A huge bite.
I don’t think he swallows straightaway, but he lowers my napkin hand pretty gently and then leans in to kiss me. Before I understand what’s going on, he’s sticking his tongue in there! And not only that, but the ice cream, as well!
I try to jerk away, of course, but he’s already holding my head in place and making sure I swallow. So I do, then I make a sort of “Mmmnn!” noise and try to push his face away. But it feels nice, and almost tingly, so I don’t push too hard.
He’s still there after a few more seconds. Perhaps he doesn’t realize I swallowed…? His lips aren’t moving, really, but his tongue is still stuck between mine. So I bite down on it softly and make the noise again, and then he backs away.
“Disgusting,” I tell him, then look around the table for another glass of water to lift. There isn’t one, but that’s alright. The aftertaste isn’t so bad.
Dom is staring at me.
“… What?” I ask him.
And still: he’s just staring! Not saying a single word!
Then I notice that pretty much everyone else at the round table is staring at me, as well. Me and Dom, I guess is what they’re staring at. But still.
“What the fuck was that?” Elijah finally asks, half-smiling, from a few seats down.
“Nothing!” I explain. “Dom just shoved some cinnamony ice cream down my throat. It wasn’t like, a real French kiss or anything, if that’s what you’re thinking. It was actually quite disgusting.” I look at Dom, who is still staring at me. “I don’t know if I’ll ever kiss you again. You may be permanently associated in my brain with cinnamon, Dom.”
For some reason, he kind of seems to think I’m serious. “But I didn’t-that’s not fair-”
I give him a little kiss.
“Billy…” Sean winces.
“Yeah?”
He shakes his head. The conversations strike up around the table again and everyone’s focus leaves Dom and I. Except for maybe a few glances from Sean. And Ian.
Dom’s slouching against the wooden back of his chair now, and I think he’s staring at his beer. His arms are crossed over his chest.
“Dom? Dommie Dom?” That means what’s wrong, by the way.
“Nothing,” he sighs, then looks up at me. And smiles. Kind of.
“Why was everyone staring at us just now?”
“Well, really, Sean still is staring at us, if you’ll so kindly direct your attention that way. I’m going to use the toilet now.” He rolls up and off the seat without a second glance and kind of stalks, I guess you could say, off to the loos.
“What is going on?” I ask. Just everyone, in general. Because they all seem to know.
Viggo slowly swirls his tea around in his glass, then sets it on the table with a soft clink and tells me, “I think that Dom is falling for you.” He does a little Viggo-head-bob. “Really hard.”
I can’t remember the last time everyone at the table was listening so intently to a serious conversation. Amazing. “You mean…” I begin, then I kind of shift in my chair and rearrange my arms on the table in front of me. “And I’ve been like… what, like, leading him on?”
“Are you sure you’re straight, Billy?” Elijah asks me. “Because maybe you feel the same way…?”
“I’m straight!” I nod. “Absolutely. So… Alright, I’ll stop, em. Leading him on, then, I guess.”
“Think about this for a moment, Billy,” Ian says. “Do you really believe that you’re straight?”
“Yes! I do.”
“But you see, you answered too quickly.” Ian folds his arms on the table and sort of leans toward me a bit. “I want you to really think, Billy. It may well be that you’re in denial.”
“I’m not.”
Ian looks ready to argue that, but that’s when Dom emerges from the loos.
“Here he comes,” Orlando says, and he points, which may be a wee bit obvious for my tastes, but Dom can usually tell when everyone’s been talking about him, anyway.
“Talking about me, boys?” he grins.
“Yeah,” I tell him. “It was great, you really missed out.”
He bends to sit down and tries to kiss me on the way, but I-I kind of-move away, so he stops in midair for a second really close to my face. I smile sort of-awkwardly, and it’s so strange… I think everyone is staring again, and Dom sits back down after a minute, busying himself in scooting his chair up to the table and taking a large swig of beer.
I know that whenever you come to realize you’ve been leading somebody on and have to stop, it’s kind of a given that their feelings usually get hurt in the process, but… I feel terrible.
~
b
5.526 words
two parts
Me and Dom-we’re best mates. Who kiss.
I don’t even remember exactly how it started, or who started it, or when it started, but it’s been going on for a while now, you know? Where we just kiss each other on the mouth. We don’t ask if we can do it. It never needs to be done. The subject is never discussed. That seems to be against the rules. We just do it.
On the lips!
I don’t understand! I’m just kind of like… What kinds of friends kiss each other on the lips?! We’re both guys. We’re both straight. So it’s not like that. And it’s not like they’re big kisses. They never last for longer than about… four… seconds. I mean. Maybe five. And they’re never French, of course. We’re mates, for Christ’s sake! We like women! Not-no. We don’t make out. Good lord, no.
But the fact remains: we kiss, and nobody else does. Not Sean and Elijah, not Orlando and… anyone. Dom doesn’t kiss anyone but me. I’ve never even seen him kiss a girl. Then again, he’s never seen me kiss a girl either, I don’t think.
~
So one night we’re just kind of leaning on each other after all our make-up and prosthetics are taken off, still sitting in the trailer and watching Sean and Elijah turn back into humans. Though for Elijah, of course, I suppose it’s never quite a full transformation.
“What’re you doing tonight, Bill?” Dom asks me, grabbing a pillow and folding himself around it. He nuzzles his head against me and it almost tingles, sort of like when a pretty girl touches you, only not because…
It’s Dom!
“Well, I was just going to ask you, Dom,” I tell him. “We could fetch a time machine and travel to some place where we won’t have to wake up at four.”
“Lij,” Dom says, “time to spill the beans. Where do you keep it?”
But Sean says to him, “The time machine? Kitchen; under the sink, behind the garbage can,” before Elijah can even answer.
“Sean!” Lij hisses, trying to slug Sean from a three foot distance while his foot is being massaged. “We can’t have Billy and Dom fucking with the space-time continuum! Think of the consequences!”
I look down at Dom; his head’s kind of snuggled against my chest. He looks up at me, as well, and we grin at the possibilities of fucking with the space-time continuum. Then Dom reaches up with his torso and neck to kiss me briefly, and he drops back down to my chest.
Elijah laughs a little bit. “How long have you guys been dating?”
“We’re not,” I tell him. “Haven’t you ever seen best mates who kiss before?” I haven’t, of course, but maybe that’s just me. I’m sure there are other examples somewhere.
“Not in the States,” Elijah tells us. “Or is it a gay thing?”
“Elijah, they’re not-” Sean starts, but.
Dom interrupts, as is always prone to happen, I suppose. “Sure, Elijah. It’s a thing gay British men who aren’t going out do, is they kiss each other. We also shag every night, actually, but we’re still just friends.” He kisses me again a little bit longer than the first time and then asks me, “Isn’t that right, Bills?”
So I give Elijah and Sean my best intelligent nod, then break the joke with a grin and tell them, “Nah, we’re not really gay.”
“But you have sex?” Sean splutters while one of the make-up girls removes his ears, which are pink at the tips, of course.
“No!” I laugh, then kiss Dom myself.
He smiles up at me in this kind of lazy haze, and there’s that almost-tingly feeling again. I’ve been getting this feeling a lot lately, actually. It’s pretty nice.
~
It’s finally the end of the week, and Pete is having this barbeque to which Dom hasn’t arrived yet. I’ve called Dom once or twice, but he hasn’t answered. Everyone’s been asking me where he is and it’s kind of strange to have to tell them that I don’t know.
“Billy,” Sean says-he pretty much looks at me like I’m about to throw a temper tantrum, but I’m not the least bit mad.
“Sean?”
“I think I need to ask you about something, and I really really hope I’m not overstepping any boundaries by doing so, but…” He takes a sweeping glance over Pete’s backyard and everyone in it. “Do you want to head out front for a minute?”
“Yeah, sure,” I comply, “but I don’t know what you’re on about.” I figure it must be quite important, you know? Sean usually can tell if something’s amiss. Although I can’t figure out why he still looks so afraid of me while we walk through the gates to the front lawn.
The sun has just set and the street lights are blinking on; the air mostly smells like hamburgers and Sean kind of clasps his hands and covers his mouth with them before speaking. “What exactly is going on with you and Dom?”
“Em.” Does Sean know something that I don’t? “What do you mean, exactly?”
That’s better-he relaxes a bit. “Wull, I don’t know, it’s just very odd to me that you guys kiss all the time, and yet you don’t think that’s weird.”
“It’s not.”
“See? And I think that maybe… Dom doesn’t feel exactly the way you think he does…? So be careful, Billy.”
Best mates. Who kiss. What more to it is that? I mean, I know Dom better than anyone, don’t I? Wouldn’t I know how he feels better than Sean?
“Look, Billy, that’s just what I’ve picked up lately, and I don’t know if I’m right or not, but I really do have a feeling that Dom…” He shrugs and seems to be finished.
“Dom what?” I ask him.
“Dom est dans la maison!” Dom calls, sort of jogging up to us. He slings an arm around each of our shoulders and-kisses me, of course, but that’s a given-and Sean shoots me this last little foreboding kind of look. “Sorry I’m late, mates, but I have an announcement to make.”
We walk back out to the crowd; I throw one of my arms around Dom and tell him, “Do you know how many people have asked me where you were, you cunt?”
“S’like we’re married,” he replies. “Don’t you just hate that?” And a kiss.
See? Dom is straight, absolutely, because he says he hates that people think we’re married. Not that people think we’re married, I mean they just kind of think it’s like we’re married or something. I think.
“So,” Dom shouts to everyone, letting go of me to step onto a bench. “I apologize for my late arrival, but I was out making a very important purchase. Which one of you lovely ladies wants the first ride on my brand spanking new motorbike?”
Motorbike? Why didn’t I hear it when Dom drove up, and why didn’t I see it? He didn’t even say anything about it until we got back here! And he wants to let one of the ladies ride it first, before me?
I scan the backyard, which is now, thanks to Dom, full of shouting guys and girls. There are far more guys than girls, of course. Dom nods smugly at them all. “Who loves me the most?”
You know when you’re kind of in an introspective mood, and you can’t really join in with the yelling of everybody else around you? I feel sort of like that, so I don’t scream ‘Me!’ like the surrounding multitudes-instead, I tug at Dom’s hand, which is hanging at about the level of my chest, and look up at him with my best watery Pippin eyes.
“Billy?” he grins. “Do you love me the most?”
I nod, kind of. Yeah, I nod. I suppose it really is true, after all. Everybody protests and tries to get Dom to look at them, but he doesn’t; I think it’s Elijah who shouts, “Prove it!”
Letting go of Dom’s big hand, I step up onto the bench with him and tell them, “If I was stranded on a desert island, and I could only take one of you with me-it would be Dom.”
My smile drops a little bit when I find Sean in the crowd giving me that kind of… that look. I check Dom; his ears are pink and he’s already moving in to kiss me. It’s just a peck. “There ya go,” he says. “Good choice, Bills!”
We hop off the bench and pop out again, ignoring, for the most part, all the booing and jeering at our heels. “Yeah,” I tell Dom, “well. Then again, I might have to kill myself if I were stranded on a desert island with just you.”
“Thanks, Bill. Good to know you care.”
“Any time, Dommie, any time.” I kiss him, but this time it’s on the cheek because we’re still walking.
“Isn’t she gorgeous?” he asks me as we approach the motorbike. He tosses me a helmet and puts another on his head so he can get on and stroke the beast.
“Yeah, it’s quite incredible. Pity you bought it, Dom. She’ll get all junked up in no time.” I pull on the helmet and then sort of carefully climb on behind him so I don’t upset the balance or anything. I scoot closer; my arms lock around his waist.
He puts the key in and revs it up; it seems quite loud, but in a good way. “Ready for the ride of your life?”
I tighten my arms. “Go on, then!”
“Are you scared, Bills?”
“Well now I am, that you asked. You’re going to crash, aren’t you, just to scare the piss out of me.”
The engine roars-Dom shrugs and tells me, “You’d best hold on tighter than that, Pissy-Legs,” and we take off without a single particle of air between us.
~
The next night, since we have a two day weekend, a few of us go out to see a play-it’s something I’d never heard of before-and then we head to a cozy little twenty-four hour restaurant.
So we’ve been here for about thirty minutes and I think I’m drunk.
Except that deep down in the pit of my liver, I know that one pint of beer does not justify the amount of self-control I should've lost in order to put myself into this situation. See… Dom is trying to feed me ice cream with honey and cinnamon on it.
Cinnamon is the bane of my existence. I don’t care what form it comes in; I hate it in gum, I hate it in toothpaste, I hate it straight, I hate it in puddings, I hate it on breakfast foods and I most certainly hate it on ice cream, so I don’t know why Dom is bothering. Well, I guess the kind of real question is… why am I letting him bother?
“Come now, Billy,” Dom says, “open wide for the airplane!” He buzzes it around on the spoon in front of my face.
I laugh, even though I know that’s against the rules; I’m not supposed to encourage him. “I’m not hungry, Dom,” I tell him with my hand over my mouth, “and I’m not eating your cinnamon!”
“But you said you would try it.” He starts working at my hand, so I slap my other hand up there, too, for reinforcement. But he’s quick, as well, and he tries to set the spoon down-I don’t really think anyone’s watching us because they don’t seem to notice that he drops it into his beer. Then he goes at my hands full force.
He’d better not tickle me, please don’t tickle me, please please pleasepleasepleaseplease-
SHIT! And I’m laughing too hard now to focus and he manages to slip a spoonful of beer-flavored ice cream into my mouth, keeping one hand tickling me right up until he removes the spoon.
I think my face must sour; beer and ice cream were never meant to cross paths. I search quite desperately for somewhere to spit it out, but nothing’s available. So. I swallow it. “Dom!” I choke at him, “That was by far the most disgusting combination of foods I have ever tasted! It was so bad, I didn’t even taste the cinnamon!” I grab the nearest glass of water, which happens to belong to Orlando-but, I mean, it’s not like he’s drinking any of it-and I take four or five long gulps.
When I set the glass back on the table and open my eyes again, Dom is smiling at me with a clean spoon and a fresh bite of ice cream, cinnamon and all, sans beer this time, and he grabs my jaw and shoves it into my mouth before I can even think to close it.
It’s! It’s… actually kind of good. But I won’t give Dom that satisfaction, of course, so I follow my gut instinct, which is to spit it all over Dom’s face.
That gets everyone’s attention.
“He tried to feed me cinnamon!” I sputter to them all. Most of them are laughing at us. I look at Dom; he’s still kind of indignant, like… well, like someone’s just spit ice cream all over his face. “Oh, Dom-mate, I’m sorry,” I snicker, then pick up one of the paper napkins and wipe at his face.
“Hey!” Orlando calls. “… Where’s my water?”
I pause mid-swipe to look back at the glass. I guess I kind of drank all of it without realizing. “Sorry, I’ll buy you another one.”
“You’d better,” he answers. “And don’t spit into it, Billy.”
He thinks everyone laughs at his joke, but really, I think they’re laughing at the fact that he doesn’t understand water is free. “I won’t, I promise.” And then I turn back to Dom, whose face is still speckled with ice cream.
“I can’t believe you just spit all over my face,” Dom tells me while I dab away, “just because of a tiny bit of cinnamon. You won’t even give it a chance! When is the last time you actually digested cinnamon, Bill?”
“Nineteen ninety-three.”
“What if you like it now? How would you know?”
“I don’t like it now. I just know.” I get rid of the ice-creamy napkin in favor of a clean one, which I dip into the very bottom of Orli’s water glass and then use it to work away at the sticky spots on Dom’s face.
He gives me that kind of skeptical expression, then manoeuvres his hand back to the ice cream. I shut my lips tight, but he’s not going for my mouth; he’s going for his. A huge bite.
I don’t think he swallows straightaway, but he lowers my napkin hand pretty gently and then leans in to kiss me. Before I understand what’s going on, he’s sticking his tongue in there! And not only that, but the ice cream, as well!
I try to jerk away, of course, but he’s already holding my head in place and making sure I swallow. So I do, then I make a sort of “Mmmnn!” noise and try to push his face away. But it feels nice, and almost tingly, so I don’t push too hard.
He’s still there after a few more seconds. Perhaps he doesn’t realize I swallowed…? His lips aren’t moving, really, but his tongue is still stuck between mine. So I bite down on it softly and make the noise again, and then he backs away.
“Disgusting,” I tell him, then look around the table for another glass of water to lift. There isn’t one, but that’s alright. The aftertaste isn’t so bad.
Dom is staring at me.
“… What?” I ask him.
And still: he’s just staring! Not saying a single word!
Then I notice that pretty much everyone else at the round table is staring at me, as well. Me and Dom, I guess is what they’re staring at. But still.
“What the fuck was that?” Elijah finally asks, half-smiling, from a few seats down.
“Nothing!” I explain. “Dom just shoved some cinnamony ice cream down my throat. It wasn’t like, a real French kiss or anything, if that’s what you’re thinking. It was actually quite disgusting.” I look at Dom, who is still staring at me. “I don’t know if I’ll ever kiss you again. You may be permanently associated in my brain with cinnamon, Dom.”
For some reason, he kind of seems to think I’m serious. “But I didn’t-that’s not fair-”
I give him a little kiss.
“Billy…” Sean winces.
“Yeah?”
He shakes his head. The conversations strike up around the table again and everyone’s focus leaves Dom and I. Except for maybe a few glances from Sean. And Ian.
Dom’s slouching against the wooden back of his chair now, and I think he’s staring at his beer. His arms are crossed over his chest.
“Dom? Dommie Dom?” That means what’s wrong, by the way.
“Nothing,” he sighs, then looks up at me. And smiles. Kind of.
“Why was everyone staring at us just now?”
“Well, really, Sean still is staring at us, if you’ll so kindly direct your attention that way. I’m going to use the toilet now.” He rolls up and off the seat without a second glance and kind of stalks, I guess you could say, off to the loos.
“What is going on?” I ask. Just everyone, in general. Because they all seem to know.
Viggo slowly swirls his tea around in his glass, then sets it on the table with a soft clink and tells me, “I think that Dom is falling for you.” He does a little Viggo-head-bob. “Really hard.”
I can’t remember the last time everyone at the table was listening so intently to a serious conversation. Amazing. “You mean…” I begin, then I kind of shift in my chair and rearrange my arms on the table in front of me. “And I’ve been like… what, like, leading him on?”
“Are you sure you’re straight, Billy?” Elijah asks me. “Because maybe you feel the same way…?”
“I’m straight!” I nod. “Absolutely. So… Alright, I’ll stop, em. Leading him on, then, I guess.”
“Think about this for a moment, Billy,” Ian says. “Do you really believe that you’re straight?”
“Yes! I do.”
“But you see, you answered too quickly.” Ian folds his arms on the table and sort of leans toward me a bit. “I want you to really think, Billy. It may well be that you’re in denial.”
“I’m not.”
Ian looks ready to argue that, but that’s when Dom emerges from the loos.
“Here he comes,” Orlando says, and he points, which may be a wee bit obvious for my tastes, but Dom can usually tell when everyone’s been talking about him, anyway.
“Talking about me, boys?” he grins.
“Yeah,” I tell him. “It was great, you really missed out.”
He bends to sit down and tries to kiss me on the way, but I-I kind of-move away, so he stops in midair for a second really close to my face. I smile sort of-awkwardly, and it’s so strange… I think everyone is staring again, and Dom sits back down after a minute, busying himself in scooting his chair up to the table and taking a large swig of beer.
I know that whenever you come to realize you’ve been leading somebody on and have to stop, it’s kind of a given that their feelings usually get hurt in the process, but… I feel terrible.
~
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