The Muse's Undoing

“No,” he insists.

“I don’t want you going to someone else if?—”

He turns my head and looks me in the eyes, effectively cutting me off. “You don’t get it.”

I shake my head.

“Having you is everything,” he says emphatically.

I still don’t get it. “Then why a crystal cock?”

He gives his head a quick shake like he’s resetting the conversation. “I bottom when I want to disappear. I never want to disappear with you. I do it when I don’t give a fuck who I’m with. When I need the noise to drown myself out. But I am insanely in love with you. I want to tattoo you on my soul.”

Suddenly, I can’t make myself breathe. I barely remember how.

“I’m yours,” he goes on, his other hand moving on my chest more firmly, more dominant, heading downward. “There is no one else. As long as you’re here, there never will be.”

“How can you say that?”

“I just can. I just know. It’s just you. It’s always been you. This was never about the nightmares.”

“Matthew…” I can’t speak. I’m not sure why I’m trying. I turn to kiss him, clinging to the back of his neck as his tongue takes over my mouth.

I wonder how I ever tolerated any less than this. Was I naïve? Or was I deliberately blocking out all this deeper need I have for him? Convincing myself that I could subsist on him in small doses.

It’s clearer by the day that I was in profound denial. How I went so long without him is beyond my understanding. He might have a dirty mind, but he has the most beautiful heart. And I am so lucky someone else didn’t steal it while I was off chasing some prize that wouldn’t have meant half as much to me as a single moment like this.

Mindlessly his hand runs up and down my outer thigh. The wool slacks I haven’t changed out of yet. “Unbuckle these,” he tells me.

As I reach for my fly, a little voice coming from behind the couch startles me so much, I nearly fall off the couch.

“Can I watch, too?”

Matthew and I perform a mad scramble of untangling ourselves and sitting up. As soon as his arms are free, he reaches behind the sofa, lifts Vaughn off the floor, and brings him onto the cushion between us. I toss him a throw pillow and he puts it on his lap while Vaughn tucks his feet beneath him and stares sleepily at the screen.

“Can’t sleep, buddy?” I ask, out of breath.

“No.” He scowls at the non cartoon characters on TV. “What is this?”

“Grown up show,” Matty says.

“Can we watch Coco?”

In terms of movies my kid could get stuck on, Coco is great. I like it. However, I’ve seen it seven times this month.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in bed?” Matthew asks.

Vaughn looks up at him. “I’m thirsty.”

“Why can’t you sleep?”

“I heard the TV,” Vaughn says.

I rub his messy blonde hair. “Sorry, bud. We’ll keep it down. Want me to tuck you in again?” My erection is long gone, but my son is difficult enough to get going in the morning without having him stay up late. It’s time everyone went to bed.

Ignoring me, he turns to Matty. “Are you sleeping over?”

“Yeah. It’s almost my bedtime, too.”