The Games of Men
The Games of Men
Rating: R
Summary: The Games Men Play, and what comes twenty six years later. All events, characters and situations are very loosely based on real life. DUNDUNDUN
Anton wakes up to the shrilling sound of his alarm clock. He jerks out of sleep, slams his palm heavily on the source of the noise, and gasps at his sudden revelation.
“Oh my god, I’m in love with him.”
Beside him, a woman stirs. She is wearing an oversized shirt that says “I Lost My Ass in San Francisco”, with a large coffee stain on her left breast, like it was predestined to be there. She opens her eyes and looks at him blearily. “Good job, Anton.”
“I’m fucking in love with him. Goddamn.”
“Who?”
Anton quickly leaves the bed, picking up all the empty junk food bags and beer cans decorating the floor. A Mudslide vodka carelessly thrown aside managed to create a blot the size of Australia on the carpet; he picks that up too, drags the trash bin with his right toe and dumps them all inside with a vengeance.
“Luigi.”
“Who’s Luigi?”
“Some guy I know.”
“What kind of a name is Luigi?” The woman yawns, stretching her arms overhead.
Anton looks at her. Grimly. “I just found out that I’m in love with him, Carla. This is a really huge thing for me, so I hope you take it seriously.”
“Jesus, just chill, Anton. It’s seven o’ clock in the goddamn morning and we were so smashed last night my head feels like it’s been torn in half by a chainsaw. Don’t expect me to formulate any bright ideas.” Carla yawns again, and Anton can see her tonsils at the back of her mouth. “So. What’s the problem? Why don’t you just tell him and get it over with?”
“I would if I could,” Anton says, “but I can’t.”
*
Anton has a point. You see when Anton realizes that he loves Luigi he is, actually, twenty-six years too late. Now, twenty-six years, that’s a really long time. You can have a date with someone for like, at least five or six hours a day, and he spent at approximately two hundred and twenty seven thousand nine hundred and eleven hours without seeing Luigi. In those two hundred and twenty seven thousand something hours he could’ve dated anybody, which he did. Anton dated a lot of women, flirting as natural to him as biting his fingernails when he’s nervous, or staring at himself in any reflective surface. Anton’s a professor now, quite a low-paying job but he enjoys the mind games he orchestrates with his students, loves seeing their crushed faces when he hands out zeroes in red ink. He’s a competent teacher, quite a hit with the ladies even, but it’s not his fault kids today have rather pronounced difficulties.
Anton is a bachelor and he enjoys the rumors that surround him; thinks it adds an air of mystery, a dash of intrigue. There are rather disparaging rumors as well, though they are weakened by the sheer amount of women he takes out and forgets the next day. Casablanca is mentioned often, and very rarely Caligula, when male co-teachers are feeling quite spiteful. Anton enjoys the attention however, and controversy only builds character.
Besides, it all started with the game, twenty-six years ago.
*
Luigi was his rival and his best friend in high school. In a normal world this sort of relationship is ridiculous and would never exist, but they created a world of their own, with its own game and its own set of corresponding rules. Anton liked solving puzzles of the mind; that was what he studied, and he took his academics seriously, while Luigi spent most of his time constructing complicated programs. The game came quite naturally to them because of their intensive backgrounds. They were quite young back then, and as young men they never wrote anything down, never made anything official. They just knew.
The game is simple. Find a pretty girl. Stick around. Make her fall in love with you. Drive her crazy. Give her presents, flowers, all sorts of things you think she’ll like. Open doors for her, carry her things. Stare deep into her eyes as she talks, as if every word she says means the entire world to you.
Then back off when things get too serious.
Luigi and Anton did not realize this, mind you. Both men were not aware that they were creating this game, which they were players one and two with controllers, that what they were doing was cruel. And no one really minded, either. No one ever thought badly of them. They were funny and charming and genuinely likeable guys, and they told the best jokes. The ladies love a sense of humor, after all.
The game continued for a couple of years. They usually liked the same women - had the same type -- so they also had the same set of friends, and they hung out a lot. Once Anton saw resentment in Luigi’s eyes when he took home a girl Luigi was eyeing, but the next day the girl was back in Luigi’s arms again, and Anton was busy with someone else. And vice versa. This continued until god knows when, even when they shacked up together. Being the best of friends, Luigi asked Anton if he wanted to share a flat and split the rent. “The walls are thick,” Luigi said meaningfully, “just in case you’re busy in the other room and don’t want to be disturbed.”
Anton shouted with joy, recalling how timely it was that he wanted to escape from his family and do stuff on his own now that they were entering college. They pooled in their money, rented a flat, and started decorating at once.
Elisabeth, one of their girlfriends, walked in during a interior designing session and shook her head. The floor was littered with newspapers which were not smoothened properly, and the walls were coated with weird splotches of blue in different directions. Luigi and Anton were giggling manfully, half-naked and flicking bits of paint at each other. Their jeans also had some paint, though their legs escaped the wrath of their tattered paint rollers.
“I am not sleeping with any of you tonight,” she announced, wrinkling her nose. Luigi and Anton shrugged and gave her seemingly guilty looks, not feeling anything in particular. When she left they quickly gathered their clothing and put them back on, suddenly self-conscious. The walls were still bare but they had a certain finished feel to them, in a strange, compelling way.
Before Anton moved to disappear inside his room, Luigi quickly placed a hand on his shoulder. His hand was cold. “Last night, you and Elisabeth…” It wasn’t a question.
Anton looked at him. “Did you hear anything?” Luigi let go of him immediately, raising his hands in what seemed like surrender. “No, no. I didn’t hear anything, I don’t know anything. None at all. What happens in your bedroom is none of my business.”
Anton sighed, and faced him. His eyes were gentle when they were supposed to be fierce. “Do you have a problem with it?”
It took at least three minutes for Luigi to answer. Yet he didn’t even speak; he just smiled, nodded once, and retreated to his own room.
*
“Well that seemed like a normal arrangement,” Carla remarks.
“What, you mean the part where I want to stick my tongue in his mouth?”
“No, you haven’t reached that part yet. That part is now. I meant the part where you were roommates.”
“Ah yes,” Anton says. “We were the best of roommates, actually. We rarely even talked to each other. Most of our times were spent in comfortable silence; me just reading a book, him typing away on his computer. I didn’t really feel like talking, he didn’t feel like talking, so all was well. But we knew each other inside and out and I don’t know why. Many times I hated him, when he bagged a girl I couldn’t. I knew he wanted to throttle me as well when I kissed Elisabeth goodnight. I think he loved her, in his own way, just like the way I did.”
“You’re both a bunch of fuckers,” Carla says.
“I know. I didn’t say we were right.”
“So what are you going to do now?”
“I have to look for him, I guess. And then.”
“And then what? You just don’t tell someone you love him after almost thirty years, not to mention that you probably fucked each other’s minds ten times over with all the girls you’ve been with. That’s like a million kinds of stupid.”
*
Anton eventually finds him; he keeps piles and piles of old phonebooks in a box, and rings up all the girls he knew they dated. The girls still remember him vaguely, and some of them even slammed the receiver so hard that Anton was afraid he was permanently deaf, but five or six girls manage to give him Luigi’s latest cell number. It is still too late, however. Luigi is staying in the country for only two days; his work and his excellence demand that he leave as soon as possible.
Right now they are having lunch in a restaurant that serves steak and milk shakes. Their first hour consisted of the usual how-are-yous and exchanges found in normal conversation between two people who haven’t seen each other. This is the second half, where Anton talks about his ineffectual students and a few funny ones, and Carla, and seminars he’s been invited to. Luigi is a software engineer as expected, one of the finest in his current institution, and his company is currently developing a grand upheaval that will allegedly rattle the modern world and their rival companies. Anton laughs at Luigi’s majestic gestures, realizing that bad science fiction is the only thing to blame.
“Jesus, Anton. You haven’t changed a single bit.” Luigi says, after calming down. Wrinkles form at the sides of his eyes when he laughs, and his smile is wider than before. He looks really happy, though truth be told Anton was more than shocked when he saw the streaks of silver on Luigi’s head, like those forty five thousand non-existent dates just bit him in the ass. “How would you know? What hasn’t changed at all?”
Luigi nods his head at the direction of Anton’s left hand. Anton grins and lifts it up, flexing his bare fingers slowly. Luigi mirrors the smile and lifts his own; the hands come closer, but they never meet. Luigi then clears his throat and shifts in his chair. “So, why did you want to meet me?”
Something twists painfully in his chest, but Anton ignores it. “I just wanted to meet an old friend.”
“We aren’t friends, Antonio.”
“You’re right.” Anton smirks. “I was the one who ended it.”
“We never were.” Luigi takes a drag from his cigarette, watches the smoke shroud Anton’s face. The grey mist covers his eyes, reminding him of pine and cold winters and heavy doses of marijuana. Anton gathers what’s left of his courage, looks up.
“The truth is, I called you here to ask you something. Something I deserve to have.” The customers are piling in as the clock strikes twelve, all faces eager and famished, and the noise almost drowns out his words. “I want to taste the women you had.”
Luigi looks at him, really looks at him, and it takes Anton all his willpower not to bolt out of the restaurant. “You had them as well.”
“Most of them,” Anton shrugs, though he never takes his eyes off the man seated across him. “Except one. Some of them I don’t remember.”
“You had Elisabeth,” Luigi says, like he is trying not to grit his teeth.
“Yes. I acknowledge that. And then there was the Elaine Incident.”
THE ELAINE INCIDENT
Anton and Elaine had a big row that night, though no shouting and damage was involved. It was a battle of composure; Elaine just stood there, whispering harshly, eyes downcast, while Anton used the tone he reserved for eight-year-old brats, which hardly healed the situation. Luigi was engrossed with watching a movie in his laptop, unperturbed even by the tension within the living room.
“What are your real intentions, anyway?”
“What real intentions?”
“Don’t shit with me. You offer propositions to a woman and sweeten things up during dates and you don’t move your ass? And then keep me waiting? What are you really after?”
“I didn’t intend anything.”
“You,” Elaine began, and she’s trying her damndest to bite back her tears, “you dote on me and then you tell me that you’re not interested at all. How could you be so cruel?”
“Listen Elaine, you’re my friend.” Anton said exasperatedly. “I do that to all my friends.”
“You kiss all your friends?”
Luigi finally tore his gaze from the computer screen and approached them cautiously, placing a hand around Elaine’s waist. “I think we all need to calm down. Elaine, why don’t you rest in my room for a while? You can switch on the AC.” The woman looked at him gratefully, and almost made her way to his room when Anton grabbed her wrist, hard.
“We’re not done yet, Luigi.” Anton said, eyes narrowing. This was a usual part of the game, and Luigi was interfering. This was against everything, and would fuck things up. It would fuck everything up, every single detail that was carefully crafted and masterfully planned. “We still have to talk it over.”
“Let go of her, Anton.” Luigi spoke firmly, but Anton couldn’t read what was in those eyes.
“I’ll let go of her, but she goes home.”
“T-that’s alright.” Elaine said. “I think I need Luigi’s…presence, right now.”
He watched them go inside a room he never even stepped foot on, went to his own, shoved all his important belongings in a duffel bag, broke the glass of the shower door with a swift kick, and made his way out. In a hotel bathtub he dreamed of Luigi and Elaine, naked and tangled together, moaning and rubbing against each other, fusing into long red threads.
*
“This is Rose.” Anton says, slipping his tongue inside Luigi’s ear while Luigi presses his lips at his neck, sucks at the soft spot there. They are in his bedroom, which Carla had already evacuated earlier. They rushed their way to the bed, taking each other’s clothes off almost bashfully, mindful of the millions of hours spent without each other, even with those moments wherein they did not touch, even if they did not share a conversation at all.
“Ah, Rose. I remember her. She ran off with another woman, didn’t she?” Luigi moves his hands lower, presses against Anton’s chest, his belly, until he reaches around his hips and cups his ass. "Yeah, that was damn depressing."
"She was quite something, wasn't she?" Anton groans, crushes his lips against the other man, and then recoils. “What are we doing?”
Luigi ignores him. “This is Lana,” he says, lifting Anton’s legs and wraps it around his waist, starts a slow, if maddening rhythm. Anton tries pushes him away, but is too happy and tired to argue. He lifts his chin, kisses Luigi again. “Who is Lana, again?”
“I don’t,” Luigi starts panting, and Anton feels his heart burst, “remember her at all.”
“We are getting old,” Anton agrees.
They say several names after that, all these faceless people coming to life as they rutted feverishly, almost like a chant, a prayer. It’s when Anton realizes they have nothing left to say except Elisabeth and Elaine he violently pushes Luigi away, stopping right before the climax. “What the fuck was that?!” Luigi yelled, furious.
“That was dangerous.” Anton says, wiping the corner of his mouth with his wrist. He could see himself in the mirror next to his bed, disheveled and awful and resigned. “We just…we almost had sex.”
“You wanted to.” Luigi says, looking very cross, though he is already pulling up his jeans and securing his belt. “I just gave you what I gave them.”
“I did too. That’s enough for today.”
“There will be no other time.” Luigi reminds him. Anton rolls his eyes in what he hopes is a convincing manner. He does not feel the burn. “I know that.”
Later he watches Luigi dress, shocked to silence by the intimacy of the sight, now knowing what he cannot have. The Mudslide stain is still visible in the carpet, though it has dried up, and it somehow reminds Anton of their old living room, empty and filled to the brim with anxiety. Carla's clothes are still scattered on the dresser, that fag hag bitch never bothering to fix herself, and Anton curses silently when Luigi notices, his eyes widening first with surprise, then misplaced acceptance. Anton wants to shout that Luigi got it all wrong, that he's not like that at all, but he presses his mouth in a thin line and does not talk.
Luigi runs a hand through his hair and ambles to the door, and before he swings it shut he gives Anton another look.
“Is there anything else you want to tell me?”
Anton stares at a blank spot on the wall. “I never want to see you again.”
“Is that the truth?”
Anton nods numbly.
“Well then,” Luigi sighs, his voice low and acquiescent. “Then you deserve the truth as well. I never slept with Elaine. I never slept with anyone.”
*
The door shuts close. “This could’ve been my,” Anton whispers to himself, then he laughs. He laughs and laughs, at first quiet then maniacally, and then he reaches down to feel. He’s still hard so he jacks himself off, seeing the threads unravel behind his closed eyes, feeling Luigi's hands for the first time around his cock. The air smells of sex and smoke and remnants of last night’s beer, and when Anton comes he opens his eyes and stares at the sticky mess on his virgin hand.
Rating: R
Summary: The Games Men Play, and what comes twenty six years later. All events, characters and situations are very loosely based on real life. DUNDUNDUN
Anton wakes up to the shrilling sound of his alarm clock. He jerks out of sleep, slams his palm heavily on the source of the noise, and gasps at his sudden revelation.
“Oh my god, I’m in love with him.”
Beside him, a woman stirs. She is wearing an oversized shirt that says “I Lost My Ass in San Francisco”, with a large coffee stain on her left breast, like it was predestined to be there. She opens her eyes and looks at him blearily. “Good job, Anton.”
“I’m fucking in love with him. Goddamn.”
“Who?”
Anton quickly leaves the bed, picking up all the empty junk food bags and beer cans decorating the floor. A Mudslide vodka carelessly thrown aside managed to create a blot the size of Australia on the carpet; he picks that up too, drags the trash bin with his right toe and dumps them all inside with a vengeance.
“Luigi.”
“Who’s Luigi?”
“Some guy I know.”
“What kind of a name is Luigi?” The woman yawns, stretching her arms overhead.
Anton looks at her. Grimly. “I just found out that I’m in love with him, Carla. This is a really huge thing for me, so I hope you take it seriously.”
“Jesus, just chill, Anton. It’s seven o’ clock in the goddamn morning and we were so smashed last night my head feels like it’s been torn in half by a chainsaw. Don’t expect me to formulate any bright ideas.” Carla yawns again, and Anton can see her tonsils at the back of her mouth. “So. What’s the problem? Why don’t you just tell him and get it over with?”
“I would if I could,” Anton says, “but I can’t.”
*
Anton has a point. You see when Anton realizes that he loves Luigi he is, actually, twenty-six years too late. Now, twenty-six years, that’s a really long time. You can have a date with someone for like, at least five or six hours a day, and he spent at approximately two hundred and twenty seven thousand nine hundred and eleven hours without seeing Luigi. In those two hundred and twenty seven thousand something hours he could’ve dated anybody, which he did. Anton dated a lot of women, flirting as natural to him as biting his fingernails when he’s nervous, or staring at himself in any reflective surface. Anton’s a professor now, quite a low-paying job but he enjoys the mind games he orchestrates with his students, loves seeing their crushed faces when he hands out zeroes in red ink. He’s a competent teacher, quite a hit with the ladies even, but it’s not his fault kids today have rather pronounced difficulties.
Anton is a bachelor and he enjoys the rumors that surround him; thinks it adds an air of mystery, a dash of intrigue. There are rather disparaging rumors as well, though they are weakened by the sheer amount of women he takes out and forgets the next day. Casablanca is mentioned often, and very rarely Caligula, when male co-teachers are feeling quite spiteful. Anton enjoys the attention however, and controversy only builds character.
Besides, it all started with the game, twenty-six years ago.
*
Luigi was his rival and his best friend in high school. In a normal world this sort of relationship is ridiculous and would never exist, but they created a world of their own, with its own game and its own set of corresponding rules. Anton liked solving puzzles of the mind; that was what he studied, and he took his academics seriously, while Luigi spent most of his time constructing complicated programs. The game came quite naturally to them because of their intensive backgrounds. They were quite young back then, and as young men they never wrote anything down, never made anything official. They just knew.
The game is simple. Find a pretty girl. Stick around. Make her fall in love with you. Drive her crazy. Give her presents, flowers, all sorts of things you think she’ll like. Open doors for her, carry her things. Stare deep into her eyes as she talks, as if every word she says means the entire world to you.
Then back off when things get too serious.
Luigi and Anton did not realize this, mind you. Both men were not aware that they were creating this game, which they were players one and two with controllers, that what they were doing was cruel. And no one really minded, either. No one ever thought badly of them. They were funny and charming and genuinely likeable guys, and they told the best jokes. The ladies love a sense of humor, after all.
The game continued for a couple of years. They usually liked the same women - had the same type -- so they also had the same set of friends, and they hung out a lot. Once Anton saw resentment in Luigi’s eyes when he took home a girl Luigi was eyeing, but the next day the girl was back in Luigi’s arms again, and Anton was busy with someone else. And vice versa. This continued until god knows when, even when they shacked up together. Being the best of friends, Luigi asked Anton if he wanted to share a flat and split the rent. “The walls are thick,” Luigi said meaningfully, “just in case you’re busy in the other room and don’t want to be disturbed.”
Anton shouted with joy, recalling how timely it was that he wanted to escape from his family and do stuff on his own now that they were entering college. They pooled in their money, rented a flat, and started decorating at once.
Elisabeth, one of their girlfriends, walked in during a interior designing session and shook her head. The floor was littered with newspapers which were not smoothened properly, and the walls were coated with weird splotches of blue in different directions. Luigi and Anton were giggling manfully, half-naked and flicking bits of paint at each other. Their jeans also had some paint, though their legs escaped the wrath of their tattered paint rollers.
“I am not sleeping with any of you tonight,” she announced, wrinkling her nose. Luigi and Anton shrugged and gave her seemingly guilty looks, not feeling anything in particular. When she left they quickly gathered their clothing and put them back on, suddenly self-conscious. The walls were still bare but they had a certain finished feel to them, in a strange, compelling way.
Before Anton moved to disappear inside his room, Luigi quickly placed a hand on his shoulder. His hand was cold. “Last night, you and Elisabeth…” It wasn’t a question.
Anton looked at him. “Did you hear anything?” Luigi let go of him immediately, raising his hands in what seemed like surrender. “No, no. I didn’t hear anything, I don’t know anything. None at all. What happens in your bedroom is none of my business.”
Anton sighed, and faced him. His eyes were gentle when they were supposed to be fierce. “Do you have a problem with it?”
It took at least three minutes for Luigi to answer. Yet he didn’t even speak; he just smiled, nodded once, and retreated to his own room.
*
“Well that seemed like a normal arrangement,” Carla remarks.
“What, you mean the part where I want to stick my tongue in his mouth?”
“No, you haven’t reached that part yet. That part is now. I meant the part where you were roommates.”
“Ah yes,” Anton says. “We were the best of roommates, actually. We rarely even talked to each other. Most of our times were spent in comfortable silence; me just reading a book, him typing away on his computer. I didn’t really feel like talking, he didn’t feel like talking, so all was well. But we knew each other inside and out and I don’t know why. Many times I hated him, when he bagged a girl I couldn’t. I knew he wanted to throttle me as well when I kissed Elisabeth goodnight. I think he loved her, in his own way, just like the way I did.”
“You’re both a bunch of fuckers,” Carla says.
“I know. I didn’t say we were right.”
“So what are you going to do now?”
“I have to look for him, I guess. And then.”
“And then what? You just don’t tell someone you love him after almost thirty years, not to mention that you probably fucked each other’s minds ten times over with all the girls you’ve been with. That’s like a million kinds of stupid.”
*
Anton eventually finds him; he keeps piles and piles of old phonebooks in a box, and rings up all the girls he knew they dated. The girls still remember him vaguely, and some of them even slammed the receiver so hard that Anton was afraid he was permanently deaf, but five or six girls manage to give him Luigi’s latest cell number. It is still too late, however. Luigi is staying in the country for only two days; his work and his excellence demand that he leave as soon as possible.
Right now they are having lunch in a restaurant that serves steak and milk shakes. Their first hour consisted of the usual how-are-yous and exchanges found in normal conversation between two people who haven’t seen each other. This is the second half, where Anton talks about his ineffectual students and a few funny ones, and Carla, and seminars he’s been invited to. Luigi is a software engineer as expected, one of the finest in his current institution, and his company is currently developing a grand upheaval that will allegedly rattle the modern world and their rival companies. Anton laughs at Luigi’s majestic gestures, realizing that bad science fiction is the only thing to blame.
“Jesus, Anton. You haven’t changed a single bit.” Luigi says, after calming down. Wrinkles form at the sides of his eyes when he laughs, and his smile is wider than before. He looks really happy, though truth be told Anton was more than shocked when he saw the streaks of silver on Luigi’s head, like those forty five thousand non-existent dates just bit him in the ass. “How would you know? What hasn’t changed at all?”
Luigi nods his head at the direction of Anton’s left hand. Anton grins and lifts it up, flexing his bare fingers slowly. Luigi mirrors the smile and lifts his own; the hands come closer, but they never meet. Luigi then clears his throat and shifts in his chair. “So, why did you want to meet me?”
Something twists painfully in his chest, but Anton ignores it. “I just wanted to meet an old friend.”
“We aren’t friends, Antonio.”
“You’re right.” Anton smirks. “I was the one who ended it.”
“We never were.” Luigi takes a drag from his cigarette, watches the smoke shroud Anton’s face. The grey mist covers his eyes, reminding him of pine and cold winters and heavy doses of marijuana. Anton gathers what’s left of his courage, looks up.
“The truth is, I called you here to ask you something. Something I deserve to have.” The customers are piling in as the clock strikes twelve, all faces eager and famished, and the noise almost drowns out his words. “I want to taste the women you had.”
Luigi looks at him, really looks at him, and it takes Anton all his willpower not to bolt out of the restaurant. “You had them as well.”
“Most of them,” Anton shrugs, though he never takes his eyes off the man seated across him. “Except one. Some of them I don’t remember.”
“You had Elisabeth,” Luigi says, like he is trying not to grit his teeth.
“Yes. I acknowledge that. And then there was the Elaine Incident.”
THE ELAINE INCIDENT
Anton and Elaine had a big row that night, though no shouting and damage was involved. It was a battle of composure; Elaine just stood there, whispering harshly, eyes downcast, while Anton used the tone he reserved for eight-year-old brats, which hardly healed the situation. Luigi was engrossed with watching a movie in his laptop, unperturbed even by the tension within the living room.
“What are your real intentions, anyway?”
“What real intentions?”
“Don’t shit with me. You offer propositions to a woman and sweeten things up during dates and you don’t move your ass? And then keep me waiting? What are you really after?”
“I didn’t intend anything.”
“You,” Elaine began, and she’s trying her damndest to bite back her tears, “you dote on me and then you tell me that you’re not interested at all. How could you be so cruel?”
“Listen Elaine, you’re my friend.” Anton said exasperatedly. “I do that to all my friends.”
“You kiss all your friends?”
Luigi finally tore his gaze from the computer screen and approached them cautiously, placing a hand around Elaine’s waist. “I think we all need to calm down. Elaine, why don’t you rest in my room for a while? You can switch on the AC.” The woman looked at him gratefully, and almost made her way to his room when Anton grabbed her wrist, hard.
“We’re not done yet, Luigi.” Anton said, eyes narrowing. This was a usual part of the game, and Luigi was interfering. This was against everything, and would fuck things up. It would fuck everything up, every single detail that was carefully crafted and masterfully planned. “We still have to talk it over.”
“Let go of her, Anton.” Luigi spoke firmly, but Anton couldn’t read what was in those eyes.
“I’ll let go of her, but she goes home.”
“T-that’s alright.” Elaine said. “I think I need Luigi’s…presence, right now.”
He watched them go inside a room he never even stepped foot on, went to his own, shoved all his important belongings in a duffel bag, broke the glass of the shower door with a swift kick, and made his way out. In a hotel bathtub he dreamed of Luigi and Elaine, naked and tangled together, moaning and rubbing against each other, fusing into long red threads.
*
“This is Rose.” Anton says, slipping his tongue inside Luigi’s ear while Luigi presses his lips at his neck, sucks at the soft spot there. They are in his bedroom, which Carla had already evacuated earlier. They rushed their way to the bed, taking each other’s clothes off almost bashfully, mindful of the millions of hours spent without each other, even with those moments wherein they did not touch, even if they did not share a conversation at all.
“Ah, Rose. I remember her. She ran off with another woman, didn’t she?” Luigi moves his hands lower, presses against Anton’s chest, his belly, until he reaches around his hips and cups his ass. "Yeah, that was damn depressing."
"She was quite something, wasn't she?" Anton groans, crushes his lips against the other man, and then recoils. “What are we doing?”
Luigi ignores him. “This is Lana,” he says, lifting Anton’s legs and wraps it around his waist, starts a slow, if maddening rhythm. Anton tries pushes him away, but is too happy and tired to argue. He lifts his chin, kisses Luigi again. “Who is Lana, again?”
“I don’t,” Luigi starts panting, and Anton feels his heart burst, “remember her at all.”
“We are getting old,” Anton agrees.
They say several names after that, all these faceless people coming to life as they rutted feverishly, almost like a chant, a prayer. It’s when Anton realizes they have nothing left to say except Elisabeth and Elaine he violently pushes Luigi away, stopping right before the climax. “What the fuck was that?!” Luigi yelled, furious.
“That was dangerous.” Anton says, wiping the corner of his mouth with his wrist. He could see himself in the mirror next to his bed, disheveled and awful and resigned. “We just…we almost had sex.”
“You wanted to.” Luigi says, looking very cross, though he is already pulling up his jeans and securing his belt. “I just gave you what I gave them.”
“I did too. That’s enough for today.”
“There will be no other time.” Luigi reminds him. Anton rolls his eyes in what he hopes is a convincing manner. He does not feel the burn. “I know that.”
Later he watches Luigi dress, shocked to silence by the intimacy of the sight, now knowing what he cannot have. The Mudslide stain is still visible in the carpet, though it has dried up, and it somehow reminds Anton of their old living room, empty and filled to the brim with anxiety. Carla's clothes are still scattered on the dresser, that fag hag bitch never bothering to fix herself, and Anton curses silently when Luigi notices, his eyes widening first with surprise, then misplaced acceptance. Anton wants to shout that Luigi got it all wrong, that he's not like that at all, but he presses his mouth in a thin line and does not talk.
Luigi runs a hand through his hair and ambles to the door, and before he swings it shut he gives Anton another look.
“Is there anything else you want to tell me?”
Anton stares at a blank spot on the wall. “I never want to see you again.”
“Is that the truth?”
Anton nods numbly.
“Well then,” Luigi sighs, his voice low and acquiescent. “Then you deserve the truth as well. I never slept with Elaine. I never slept with anyone.”
*
The door shuts close. “This could’ve been my,” Anton whispers to himself, then he laughs. He laughs and laughs, at first quiet then maniacally, and then he reaches down to feel. He’s still hard so he jacks himself off, seeing the threads unravel behind his closed eyes, feeling Luigi's hands for the first time around his cock. The air smells of sex and smoke and remnants of last night’s beer, and when Anton comes he opens his eyes and stares at the sticky mess on his virgin hand.