Too Much / Not Enough
It’s probably pretty fucking morbid of him to have thoughts about how pretty Alice is when she’s inverted and small. She wears her grief like silk and everything about her unsure presence has his senses on tenterhooks. just looking at her inspires a dread-like euphoria that he knows is sick.
“You didn’t answer my texts, so I assumed you were in class. I just wanted to stop by.” She explains, taking a few steps from the top of the sloped entryway that sits under the auditorium seating. Her hair is long and blonde, muddy with darker streaks that Daniel likes best.
The sun dress she’s in does wonders.
“I didn’t – I didn’t know you texted me. Did I text you?” Daniel asks, setting the NDA face down on his desk while he stands, like he’s been caught doing something he shouldn’t be.
“No, I just missed you.”
Daniel’s head snaps up. He nods, eagerly, coming around the desk to meet her halfway.
“I – I missed you too-" He chuckles, licking his lips. “I’m sorry. For being a total jackass last week, for just - walking out. I didn’t want that. I don’t know why I did that.”
Through the apologies Alice’s face turns soft and searching, latching onto the words with desperate little nods, her mutt-y eyebrows furrowing. “I know. I just missed you. I needed more. But there’s no one like you out there, Danny, all these boys-“ She takes a step forward, closing the gap between them with her hand at his chest; as if to keep him at bay, but then her fingers twist the fabric into her fist and she’s looking up into his face and Daniel leans forward.
“Tryna replace me already?” He taunts, gently cupping her face, the natural curve from his thumb to forefinger sitting under her ear comfortably. “If I said that to you, you’d probably blow a gasket.” He laughs and kisses her cheek, then her eye.
“Of course not.” She protests, lips parted. She readies herself for a kiss that doesn’t come, eyes closing. “I just realized how boring everyone else on this fucking planet is.”
Alice reaches around his ribs, pulling his body against hers.
Holding her this close, having her in his arms again, he’s forgotten how perfectly she fits there. How good she feels as she slips her knee between his legs the way she always does, the perfect slope of her back in her tight little dress. And she smells good.
Daniel doesn’t remember Alice smelling as good as she does now. It doesn’t even smell like she’s wearing perfume, but the smell of her shampoo and the smell of her neck entice him to kiss her like he wants to eat her.
“God, you smell so good-“
“Daniel, what happened to your chin?”
The question has him pausing in his vigor, a momentary lapse in his concentration as mirth breaks through. He laughs and scoops her up against his body, grabbing two handfuls of her ass so that he could hike her up on his hips. “Don’t ask me that,” He grins, kissing her chest, up her neck. “Please, what a can of worms.”
He carries her over to his desk, both of their giggles faintly heard as she’s set down on it. Alice reaches for Daniel’s shoulders and uses them to pull him in close. “Tell me.” She insists, the faintly silky touch of her fingers wrapping around the base of his throat in a loose hold. The kind that makes his cock jump and his Adam’s apple bob. “And I’ll let you fuck me right here.”
Daniel’s pretty sure she came here for this. She’s usually eager when they meet to fuck, but this is something else entirely and he’d be stupid to pass up an opportunity this good to get back in her good graces. Daniel smiles and steps closer, spreading her thighs as he closes the distance between them. The thing between her legs is warm, even through the front of his jeans; she’s hot and he reaches between them with his hand, cupping her cunt.
“I left the coffee shop and I hit a students car.” He says running his fingers over the already-dampened fabric, pleased to find that she’s wearing those white cotton panties he likes. He’s hard and ready for her, but he likes to tease. Touching her like this is his favorite part. “I was angry. I needed to hurt someone.” He lies, pulling her panties to the side and sliding a single digit into her wet cleft.
Alice tightens her hold around his throat, lifting her fingers slightly so that the grip there cuts him off from swallowing. She seems to take pleasure in the little gasp that leaves his mouth because she smiles and wraps her legs around the back of his thighs. Without warning, just as he feels how wet she is, she loosens her hold on his throat and rips his bandage off.
The skin prickles uncomfortably at first but the faint heat it leaves behind, the irritation, feels like bliss. Daniel groans, pulling back slightly, laughing. “Fuck. Don’t do that!”
“Ah,” She croons, artificial in her tenderness. “I’m sorry, Danny-baby. Did that hurt?” Her hands run up the sides of his face and pull him in close, tangling in his hair until abruptly grabbing hold of two handfuls and pulling Daniel’s head back so she could see his stitches. “Wow, they did a really shitty job at putting you back together.”
As if to remind her just what they were doing, Daniel lowers his fingers and slides one into her. Immediately, without even looking, he can feel how fucking wet she is. Daniel pants and closes his eyes, skimming the palm of his hand over her clitoris. “Don’t touch it,” He warns and pulls his finger out, only halfway, before slowly sinking it back inside her.
“I won’t if you fuck me.” Alice responds, letting his hair go. “Fuck me.”
“I wanted to eat you out a lil-“
“No, I want you to fuck me.”
Daniel’s hand is smeared with dewy pre-ejaculate when he pulls it out of her panties. He thinks about it for a second, just as he grabs for his pants, and lifts it to his mouth to lick up his palm. Salt, and sweet musk flower his senses almost immediately. Daniel groans, inhaling his hand as he puts the finger that had been inside her, into his own mouth.
Alice watches him and he looks into her eyes as he sucks it clean.
Only then does he undo his belt and push his trousers down to his ankles, uncaring that the air was cold. His cock springs from it’s confines and Alice exhales deeply, reaching between their bodies so she could line it up and –
“Fuck.” He growls, immediately bottoming out.
She’s practically shaking around his cock. Daniel can feel her hole tighten around him and then loosen and every time she tenses up it feels like he’s being milked. It’s good. It’s been ages since he’s fucked anyone, since he’s been inside her and he misses it. His body missed it. Arms wrap around her, using his hands to pull her hips close to the edge of the desk in hopes that he can fit more of himself inside her and she gladly uses his shoulders as leverage to do the same.
“I missed you,” She whispers through a shaky exhale, hugging Daniel close, enough that they’re ear to ear and Daniel is staring at the desk she’s sitting on. “Oh god, I missed you.”
“You missed my cock,” He corrects and shoves his hips forward shallowly in the same motion he pushes her hips against his from the back, forcing her to take him as deep as she possible can. “That why you’re here, you miss the way it feels?”
She doesn’t answer, but she does moan as he fucks into her. It’s only when he pulls out halfway and slams back in does she answer with a, “Fuck, yes, Daniel – I missed it!” Her fingers are scrambling down his back, scratching up the space between his shoulder blades and Daniel fucks her like that, the lewdest, loudest sound of their wet bodies meeting one another filling the auditorium.
Daniel kisses Alice’s shoulder and then bites it, playfully nipping at her neck before he finds her ear and says, “Tell me you missed this cock. Say it.” as he thrusts in sharply, chin jutted forward in a grimace.
All he feels is the hot, slick heat of his cock pistoning inside her at a desperate rate, the sound of Alice’s moans, the sound of the auditorium door opening –
“Wait.” Daniel says, stopping, pulling back from her neck. “Shut up a second.” Daniel looks around, softly putting a finger up to his lips to quiet Alice; sure that he’d heard what he did. He can feel the sensation of that cold, cruel shadow lingering in the dark of the tunnel and he’s pretty sure that it’s Armand there. The same presence he’d felt the first time Armand had snuck into his lecture and watched him for the better part of an hour. Fuck. He’d asked him here, didn’t he? Alice was right, he needed to check his fucking messages and text people back.
“It’s nothing,” She whispers, turning her head around the same way he does.
He can feel her cunt tightening around his cock and it loosens his resolve considerably, but not near enough to continue. Daniel is bent over Alice’s body like a dog, sweaty and needy and if he looked hard enough, squinted hard enough, Daniel might see Armand in those shadows.
“Fuck me,” Alice whines, shallowly jutting her hips forward for him. “I need you to fuck me, Daniel.”
For some stupid reason, he tries to find a reason to continue. If not for Alice and his sake, than for the anger he felt finding out that Armand was married. He was married and he was ruining his life and nothing he could do to him would be worse than what Armand was doing to him just by existing.
With that in mind, with Marius in mind, Daniel idly nods and sinks back into his lovers body. Alice sighs at his ear and lowers her self backwards, until she’s propped up on her elbows the same way Armand was last night. Except he can see her cunt peeking out from behind her panties and it’s pink and red, all swollen and dewy with her arousal and Daniel can only pull his cock back out.
His eyes skim the shadows before lowering himself between her thighs, lifting her sundress and sucking the wet from her clitoris. “No!” She giggles, laying herself the rest of the way down. Her hair runs off the end of the desk and she lifts a thigh over his shoulder.
How many times has he watched Marius fuck Armand? How many videos, how much money has he spent to put another mans cock in Armand’s body, in his mouth? This penance, as misdirected as it is, is everything Daniel could hope for. As he runs his mouth over Alice’s cunt, he imagines that it’s Armand’s hole he’s tonguing, Armand’s lewdly wet cunt that sucks at, pulling one fold into his mouth before taking the other and running his tongue between them.
He's forgotten how good it feels to eat Alice out. Between the responsive hip-lifting and her restrained whimpers, Daniel’s pretty fucking sure that he could just eat her out and he’d be fine with not fucking her at all. If it weren’t for wet she was, Daniel’s pretty sure she’d be happy to let it go down that way. She never says no to it and he never asks, he just does, and this is why: the thighs around his head tighten when he runs his tongue from her hole to her clitoris, sucking at the flesh around that little nub, rubbing his chin up against the sensitive flesh between her hole and clit.
“I want you to fuck me so hard you leave bruises on me,” She cries out, twisting her hips up, trying to chase the curve of his tongue in a desperate manner. “Fuck me!”
With his chin shiny with spit and wet, Daniel stands back up and shoves his cock back inside her. He lifts her ankles around his hips and looks up into the shadows as he thrusts into Alice’s pliant, welcoming body. The desk shifts when their hips come together and he can feel her tightening around him sporadically – a sure sign that she was about to come.
“Daniel,” She pleads, reaching a hand between their bodies. “Harder, just like that. Do it really hard.” Her fingers dip below her panties and start rubbing. She looks so fucking debauched and all he can do is look between them, from Alice to the shadows, Alice, Armand, Alice, Armand.
When Alice comes, he tumbles right after her. She’s tighter as she squeezes him, her back arching off the desk when her orgasm rips through her body. A release of a moan fills the auditorium. Daniel just keeps fucking her, chasing his euphoria, breathing hard and gripping the ends of her dress with a ferocity fitting of someone more violent than he.
Armand steps out from the shadows.
Daniel can feel his body grow cold, like he’s been caught, but it’s nothing in comparison to the heat that burns him up as he cums. His hips thrust a few more times, once, twice, three times before he spills inside of her and stills; his cock throbbing as he cums inside, breathing hard, watching Armand as Armand watches him.
Oh, he hates him for it. A festering inferno is abrew under his face and he hopes that the ferocity of his hatred is clear. He hates Armand for nothing at all, for starting this; for not ending it. For listening to him, for not listening to him. A thousand and one things, Armand amongst the horde and blameless.
But he needs to put it somewhere, this anger, this disappointment. It needs to go somewhere.
“I haven’t cum that hard in months.” Alice breathes, her arms extended on either side of her body in a lifeless heap. He can still see the dewy residue on his fingers and Daniel thinks he’d like to lick those clean, too, but he doesn’t say it.
“That was good, huh?”
Daniel, looks at her and collapses forward, until she’s got his full weight on her and he can feel his soft cock beginning to slip out of her. Wet. Lurching.
“Sorry I came in you, I wasn’t trying to.” He says softly, tenderly pulling her hair away from her eyes. His thumb brushes one of her eyebrows, the blonde-ish one and he looks up, just long enough to see that Armand is gone.
“I liked it.” She replies, glancing up at him with a warmth. “It feels good when you don’t use a condom. I like when you come in me.”
“Whoa,” Daniel laughs, a coy look in his pale, violet eyes. “Less than a week without me and you want me shootin’ my load in you from here on out, here? Maybe we should break up more often.”
Alice grins, squeezing her cunt around him. The throb is half-pleasure half-overstimulation and all sensation. Daniel grimaces and pulls off her, surprised to find how slick his cock is; the dewy wetness, with his ejaculate, oozes against his thigh and he reaches inside one of his drawers for a few napkins.
“Can I take a picture of you like this?” He smiles, reaching for her sun dress and pulling it up her belly a little bit. Her panties are soaked through and still slightly pulled to the side enough to get a glimpse of how fucking wet and lewd she is. Her cunt is red and swollen and he has half the mind to suck on her clit a little to show her how it feels to be overstimulated.
“No.” She laughs, pushing her dress back down. “Just gimme a tissue.”
“I got it. Don’t worry.” He says he’s got it and he does: Daniel grabs a few more tissues and gently begins to wipe up the mess he’s made of her. He starts at the crease of her thighs and works his way in. He moves her panties to the side a bit more and cleans her up the best he can before putting her underwear back in place. His palm cups her through her panties again, giving her a soft smack before she reaches for him and he helps her back up.
“My desk is going to smell like us for weeks.” He grins, kissing her forehead.
“Good. Let it be a reminder not to neglect me again.” Alice counters and softly cups his face so that she can return his kiss, more tender than he is.
“Does this mean we’re back together?”
“No. This means we’re dating, but it doesn’t mean we’re in a relationship.”
“What does that even mean?”
“It means,” Alice starts, hopping off his desk and righting her dress. “If you’re smart, you’ll put in the effort and we can see where it goes.”
Later, in the parking lot, Daniel tries to invite Alice over.
“You should come over.” He says with half a smile on his face, still flushed from their fucking and trying to be convincing. There’s a slight droop to the flop of blonde hair over one eye and his cheeks are pinkened slightly, but he’s still hoping to take the inch he’s given so he can turn it into a mile.
Alice seems to understand him better than he knows himself because she laughs and grabs his hand, shaking her head. She puts her head on his shoulder, a wash of blonde hair pushed by the wind into his face.
“No. I have too much to do tomorrow and so do you.”
“How’d you know?”
“Because you always have a full schedule. And you looked pretty locked into your paper’s when I came in, so I assume you still have work to do tonight.”
Alice has always seen him for what he is. She’s annoyingly perceptive. Daniel sighs, leading them towards the parking lot where he’s parked. “You’re right about that. Can I drive you home at least?” He tries, lighter than before.
They’re tangled up, hand in hand, when Daniel sees Louis from across the parking lot. His long dark hair is let out of its plait and he’s gesturing with his hand. He doesn’t see much else, but the back of Louis head and even that’s obscured by the rest of the cars.
“I drove here.” She replies, easily following him. “It’s okay.”
“I can still drive you home. And then I’ll run back here and I’ll get your car.”
Alice laughs, thumping him on the arm. “You would not. You’re just desperate to get your dick wet again.”
“I’ll run the entire way, doll, you don’t even know. I used to run varsity.”
“Did you run in those tiny gym shorts?”
It’s Daniel’s turn to laugh. As they approach his car, he puts an arm around her shoulders and brings her forehead in for a kiss. Just a small peck, enough to get a whiff of her shampoo; he can still see the bottle she uses. Strawberry and Cream. He inhales at her hair line, kissing the crown of her head. “God, yeah. No jock strap so you know I was flashing every single mom on the trail when we’d practice.”
“Mmmh, kinda jealous. Not gonna lie.” Alice turns her head up to him, kissing his chin. “I wanna see it bounce. I’ll let you drive me home if you do.”
“Fucking done.” He grins, walking her back against the door of his car so that he could press his pelvis to hers. Daniel pins her against the car, imagines how easy it would be to lift up her little dress and put it in her. How simple it would be. As he leans in, he also shuffles a hand between them, lifting her sundress’s hem so that he could get gently walk his fingers up her thigh to her hip.
“Daniel,” She warns, leaning back against his car window. “Enough.”
Glancing into her eyes pulls his gaze behind her head, towards Louis far off in the empty side of the parking lot. He isn’t alone, like he previously thought, he’s with Armand.
Armand is sitting on the front bumper, his feet pulled up onto the metal brace, elbows against his knees.
Louis is talking animatedly, book in hand, gesturing into the air and then at his own chest and Armand, for all his stone-like stillness, is staring right at him. He doesn’t like the way they look together. Daniel leans forward against Alice’s chest and hides his face against her ear.
“I missed you.” He whispers and kisses her there, trying to keep himself contained. But he can’t. He’s spilling out from every orifice and scar, every fissure where he’s weakest. He’s getting hard. And he can’t pull his eyes away from Armand.
“I missed you too, Danny.” She seems to acquiesce in his arms. Alice goes slightly limp, wrapping her arms around him from the middle. “Thank you for apologizing to me. You have no idea how much that was needed. Really.”
Armand breaks their contact first. A cold, aching arousal sits behind his ribs and grows ugly and needy but he can’t let Alice know. A myriad of question’s, both angered and contained, sit behind his teeth and grow hair. How does Louis know Armand? And was this a school thing, maybe? Was Armand watching him earlier, when he thought he’d heard the door open? Or was it wishful thinking? He doesn’t look upset, or hurt, Armand looks resigned as he’d stared into his eyes. Apathetic, almost.
Daniel isn’t resigned. If anything, seeing Armand stretched out across the front of Louis’ car makes him angry. Louis’ never even let him sit in it let alone on top of it, but somehow that brat gets full privilege to make himself at home where Daniel was denied? How?
An uglier question: Is Armand the student Louis slept with? Streaming, pornography, those are entertainment careers. Was Armand the entertainer that he’d fallen in love with? Daniel burns at the thought. He sighs, pulling back.
He looks into Alice’s face and he sees Armand there. Only for a second.
“I don’t mean to be an asshole. I don’t know-“
“Don’t ruin it, Danny.” Alice runs a hand up his chest, smoothing her fingers up against his shoulder. She scrutinizes his face for a second before cupping his cheek and giving it a quick, playful slap. “You already apologized; I don’t need the cliff notes.”
The smack wakes him up marginally, but it doesn’t lure his mind back to her. He’s still dying to know why Armand and Louis are talking. A lot of kids took Louis class, maybe they were just talking about literature. Or poetry. Not that Armand was the poetry type, at least he doesn’t think so, but literature also seemed to be thrown out the window; he didn’t know who George Orwell was, either.
“I just missed you. And I fucked up my car because I left in such a shitty mood, you wanna see it?”
“I still can’t believe you had to get stitches because of me. I think that’s the most romantic thing you’ve ever said to me, Professor Molloy.” Alice smiles, pushing Daniel back with a shove.
Daniel, for all of his arcane desires, grows hot under the collar when she smirks at him and turns to walk away. He grabs her hand quickly, pulling her back with a violent tug; she comes so easily. Alice is giggling, curling herself into his arms easily, kissing his re-bandaged chin. “Lemme drive you home.”
“I have to go,” She laughs, poking him in the ribs. She knows he’s ticklish. “Goodbye, Daniel.”
He hates being tickled so he kisses her once, inhaling her sweet smell. “I hate to see you go,” Daniel sighs, dropping his arm when she inevitably wiggles out of them. “But I’ll be damned if I hate to watch you leave.” Her tight little sundress – Daniel leans against the hood of his car, pointedly keeping his eyes on Alice until she’s turning, gone. A wisp of her hair is the last thing he sees before he quickly turns back around for Armand and Louis.
But they’re gone, too.
Louis car is gone, Armand is nowhere to be seen. He swears. One loud, “Fuck!” Before slamming his hand down into the hood of his beater. Digging his phone out of his pocket to try and call Armand, Daniel’s met with a barrage of texts and phone calls from Armand and Alice.
[ SMS; Alice ] Would it be alright if I came and seen you after classes today? I need to talk to you.
[ SMS; Alice ] I’ll be taking no answer from you as a sign that you’re currently teaching. I’ll be around a bit after 4.[ SMS; Armand ] im here.
[ SMS; Armand ] are u going to make me wait on u
[ SMS; Armand ] where are you???[ SMS; Alice ] I just arrived, I’ll check in at the office and I’ll make my way over.
[ SMS; Armand ] hello??? :/
[ SMS; Armand ] it was a pleasure to meet alice
He’s such a fucking idiot. If he’d just answered his fucking phone once and a while he could’ve avoided this. He doesn’t regret what happened, he couldn’t, but he does regret the change that this will inevitably cause between he and Armand. He didn’t want him to see any of that, he didn’t want anybody to see who he was or what he did when he thought no one was looking but Armand had seen and Armand had gone straight to Louis. A part of him, as bitter and mean as he could be, thinks that Armand deserves to have seen it. For everything he’s done so far, for the dynamic that they’ve slowly pieced together like split skin; he wants Armand to ache how he aches. He needs that.
He doesn’t want to think about what it might mean if Armand and Louis had left together. If there was more to this story between them. Was Daniel one in a long line of many? How far did this all go?
While it’s true that Armand didn’t drive himself this morning, could he see Louis giving him a ride home? Wherever that was? No. Not unless they knew each other. Louis was talking, actually talking, at Armand and they seemed …. Well, they seemed chummy. Certainly.
Daniel didn’t talk to any of his students like that, not privately anyway.
Should he phone Louis?
He should phone Louis.
Scrambling into his car, Daniel pulls out his phone and scrolls through his contacts until he finds what he's looking for. What was he trying to accomplish here? As he stares down at the call button, he lets his thumb hover over the screen. Tries to reason with himself that he was just calling to thank him for lunch, but as he presses it, Daniel hangs up immediately.
No, that was suspicious. He couldn't have Louis know that he was entangled with Armand. His shame was a fickle bitch and his ego was a fickler, bitchier bitch; the thought of Louis looking at him with those disappointed, judgmental eyes has him gripping his phone in his fist. What was his play here? He didn't actually want to hurt him, but he was. And even if he liked it, Daniel wanted there to be more tenderness between them. The sweetness of their earliest stumbling's still sits in his chest and writhes when he thinks about Armand.
Instead of calling Louis, he texts Armand.
[ SMS; To Armand ] I’m sorry
[ SMS; To Armand ] Can you call me
[ OUTGOING CALL; To Armand ] DELIVERED AT 5:13 PM.
[ SMS; To Armand ] can we talk?
[ SMS; To Armand ] I understand why you’d be angry I just want to explain my side of things.
It's not that he expects a reply right away, but he does stare at his phone a little bit longer. Willing it to ring or vibrate. Anything.
After a few more seconds, Daniel gives up and just drives home because there was nothing else he could do. He was tired already and he felt bone-weary the second the heat in his seat kicks in. There was an entangled knot of his nerves that writhed inside of him like a pit of snakes and he thinks about what he did today. How ugly his fear makes him. What a coward he's turning out to be.
The balancing act by which his life is lived is nothing short of a miracle that nothing has gone awry but this constant push-and-shove he has going on with Armand. It was a terrible feeling, this attraction he had for the kid. He was nothing at all just eight months ago and now here he was, relapsing into old habits; seven years of sobriety down the drain and all of it lead back to Armand.
When he gets home, he sits in his car for a long time. He rolls the windows down and lowers the seat back some, feeling around in his pockets for his smokes. He figures, what better way to end a shitty day than watching the sun go down while he has a smoke? But as he grabs his briefcase to rifle around for his zippo, he comes across his medication and takes a couple. He doesn't even hesitate, he just screw the lid off and pours them into his palm.
What did it matter? He was already two feet in the grave and scrambling for purchase, clawing at the grass; Where was the harm?
Swallowing the pills with a swig of an old bottle of water, Daniel pulls out the NDA and tries to flatten it against the steering wheel. It curls back up no matter what he tries so he just pulls the front page and tucks it back. As far as non-disclosure agreements went, Daniel's pretty surprised to find out some information that he wasn't privvy to before. Mainly that Armand had a different legal name.
Amadeo De Romanus. Strange.
Immediately it feels like he's finding out something he shouldn't know. Or maybe it's something he just doesn't want to know.
Under their names was his own name, boldened against the stark back drop of the white paper.
There was a standard agreement to begin with, an accordance that went over Daniel's side of the contract; that he was only privy to disclosing party (Armand and, by extension Marius) under the consent from all three parties. If consent is revoked, the agreement is null. Limited partnership with the disclosing party was also something that he needed to think about because he had no idea what kind of partnership he even wanted or if it was on the table now that Armand wasn't answering his phone call.
It was his own fault he wasn't answering. He should probably just throw the whole agreement out the window, be done with it. But he was weary and his bones were slowly turning to mush as he finishes up the rest of his smoke. Did he want to be with Armand still? Technically, if he were a piece of shit he'd go so far as to say that the NDA would render him legally inculpable if it ever went south. Lying was one thing, and cheating was something else in it's entirety, but Louis was right; Marius was giving him an out in more ways than one.
He could have both. He could be with Alice and still be with Armand on the side and he, legally, wouldn't be able to tell Alice about it.
"You're such a piece of shit," Daniel grins, throwing his head against the back of his car's seat. Exasperation sits in his chest longer after his smile fades and the feeling slowly welcomes the drugs into his system. He feels it the moment they sink in from his stomach, spreading outwards with cold, inviting tendrils. He loved that feeling. Better than fucking, better than an orgasm - Nothing in this world compared to the gentle suffocation that came as the world grew unfocused and blue around the edges. Daniel puts the paper's into his lap and stares out his window, finger held up against the edge to ash his cigarette now and then.
He didn't even smoke it, he just enjoys watching the filter get eaten away at by the ember.
A lapse of time seems to occur then.
He doesn't notice it at first, it feels like sleep but a slow, honey'd pleasure runs up his body and down into his thighs and Daniel can feel himself nodding off by the time he catches himself. Daniel does the sensible thing and begins to drunkenly gather his things from the passenger seat, tucking his pills back into his briefcase and throwing his phone inside next to his car keys. And he makes sure that it's his car keys, just in case he accidentally locks them in a car in his drugged up haze, Daniel dangles them in front of his face and says, "These are you car keys. This is you locking your car door." He slams the car shut, proud that he hasn't locked himself out.
When he gets upstairs, he throws everything onto the counter and strips right in front of the door. Everything except for his trousers, but even those are lost as he staggers into his bathroom and puts the shower on. His dick feels crusty, his mind felt like it was stuffed full of cotton, his mouth was dry; life was weird. As he takes a piss, Daniel leans to the side and looks at himself in the mirror.
The color in his chin is finally going away. The blondish stubble that usually grows in around his jaw first hides the bruising slightly, but it gives him a nasty 5 o'clock shadow that he grimaces at. Turning his head left and then right, looking at himself with the bandage before deciding to pull that bandage off so he could get a look at that, too.
Alice was right about them doing a shitty job. The skin was pink around the edges and the flesh that was split is pale. Maybe a sign that he was getting better. Pink was good, right? Pink was new skin. He should probably put off shaving, but having his beard this long is itchy. And there was hair growing up through the stitches, too. Delicately, while he shakes his dick, Daniel scratches at his stitches.
"Uuuughhhhhh." He groans. It feels good. Way too good.
By the time he's back to staggering around his bathroom, he promptly decides that he should take a bath instead. Despite sitting in his car for two hours it was barely 9 and he was still mildly awake. Daniel scratches at the hair under his naval, grabbing himself a beer from the fridge and his cellphone as he makes his way back into the bathroom. He was going to call Armand. And if Armand didn't answer, he'd call again.
He doesn't pick up the first time he calls, but he expects that. Daniel's all tucked up in his bath by the time he gets the voice mail on the third call, head lolling against the tile as he slurs, "How'sa bitta yer' own med'cine taste, huh? Stop being a prick, Amadeooo. Answer the phone. I'm going to keep calli-"
His call is cut off. Probably because Armand ignored the call. Asshole.
He calls again, this time he doesn't leave a voice mail; he just keeps on phoning him. One call after the other, a cycle of being denied that arouses anger from him in abundance. Daniel blinks and wipes his upper lip of it's sweat, propping one of his legs up against the edge.
The twelfth call goes through.
Daniel almost misses the sound of him picking up completely, but then there's a rushing of air on the other side of the room and Armand's voice is hissing, "What, Daniel?" So sharply in his ear that he has to cringe away from the screen for a second.
"Why are you avoiding me? You little pervert. I seen you."
"Why are you breathing like that? What's wrong with you?"
He wasn't aware that he was breathing like anything at all, but now that Armand mentions it he tries to straighten up in his bath, head shaking some. "I'm - Nothing's wrong with me. What's wrong with you!"
"Are you drunk?" Armand says, louder than he was before. Not affronted, but annoyed. Maybe. A little concerned, if Daniel had to guess.
"No. I just wanted to know what the -" He does sound drunk. He tries to correct himself again, this time sitting all the way up in the tub and rubbing both a hand over his eyes as if he could scrub the drugs out of his system that way. "I wanna know what the fuck that was about. You're ignoring me because of that? What about me, huh? Don't I get to be angry that you have a fucking husband!?"
When Armand speaks again, his boyish tone is scathing and petulant. "I don't understand why you think we owe each other anything."
"You said we were meant for each other!"
"That was before you did what you did to me!"
A silence settles between them, but it's not in Daniel's nature to back down from a fight. He feels slighted, like he's being ripped off somehow. But to know that Armand felt the same way about what transpired between them felt like liquid ice straight through his veins. Wasn't he about to apologize just a few hours ago? He feels stupid now.
"I'm sorry. I don't -" Daniel stutters and then throws a hand up in frustration. "I don't know what's wrong with me. I wanted to see you and I just - I didn't know she'd be there, okay? She didn't tell me she was coming. And I didn't ask. By the time 4 o'clock rolled around, she was already waiting. I didn't plan it that way. I wanted to say I-" What? What? Daniel feels his bravery, his anger, waning. And with it, his articulation into his own thoughts.
"Say it." Armand prompts, a dreadful silence on the other end of the line.
"I imagined that it was you." Defeated, head hung, Daniel sighs into the hot air.
"So why didn't you fuck me when you had the chance?"
"I was scared."
"Of me."
"Of losing my job. And my reputation. And -"
"And?"
"And I was scared of losing control of myself. There was a moment where I just -" Daniel inhales and then exhales it quickly. "Where I just wanted to hold you down and do something awful to you and I didn't want to - to change you or have you be different. I'm not that guy. I can control myself."
"I know you can, Daniel. I think you're stronger than you give yourself credit for."
"I'm not. I'm fucking weak and my entire life is hanging on by a single thread and everything that's happened between us feels like we're heading towards a car crash."
"So why don't you just let go?" His voice is smaller than it was just a moment ago. Like the tender beginnings of a piece of music, the emotions that it evokes in him can only be described as anticipatory.
Daniel thinks about that for a long time. The silence between them grows, but it isn't stagnant. The quiet is a chance to level his breathing, to angle it tangential to Armand's in hope that it'll calm his heart, too.
"Might I say something?" Armand interrupts, clearing his throat. "When you left me bent over your desk with your semen in my underwear, I thought I liked it, I thought I wanted that. But when you left, Daniel, I realized that I didn't want to feel that way. I just wanted you to like me. I thought that if I gave you something, if I let you see me -" He always sounds like a child when he's hurt. His voice shrinks into a desperate, low-crawl across gravel. "Is that all you wanted me for?"
Oh, fuck.
He didn't even realize. He knew he'd hurt Armand, but he thought - Well, he thought it was a physical kind of hurt. Holding him too hard, like a clumsy human trying to keep hold of a sleek, jumping bird in it's palm. Daniel sighs and leans way back, stretching out his legs in the water.
"I'm sorry, Armand. This is exactly what I've been trying to avoid. No, no. That's not all I - Jeeze, cut me some slack here. I didn't mean to just leave you there, okay? I just. You looked so fragile when I stood up and you didn't move. It felt like I just killed you." Now that it's out of his mouth, it sounds more morbid that he'd intended it to be. There's an ugly heaviness to the honesty he gives him, but what else was there between them but this petulant love that refused to stay put? This push and pull, bound in an eternal game of tug-o-war that Daniel knew he had no chance at winning. "I know how it sounds. I didn't want it to happen like that. I wanted something better, but then I got thinking 'bout how pathetic that is, y'know? Wanting to date some kid I just met off the internet? I didn't want to be another guy that was going to show up at your house with a knife."
When Armand doesn't answer him, he continues.
"And then I thought, what the fuck would a guy like you want to do with someone like me? Aren't I just another John, another subscriber to your fucking channel? Why am I trying to fall in love with you? Why am I letting myself go that far? What is it about you that just won't let me stop? I can't stop myself, Armand. I'm weak."
"I hated seeing you with her." Armand says in response, a confession for a confession to make it equal. "I wanted it to be me."
"I wanted it to be you, too. I texted you to apologize, okay? I didn't know she'd show up, we're supposed to be broken up."
"Are you?"
"Right now? Yeah. Pretty sure. She just wanted to fool around, it wasn't anything serious."
"I feel like shit." He laughs.
Daniel's missed that sound. Maybe if it didn't sound so bereft, he might enjoy it more.
"I do, too. I'm a little high."
"I can tell."
"How?"
"You're slurring, Daniel. And your breathing is very loud."
"Oh. I didn't - I'm sorry about that, too."
"You should be. Why are you only ever honest with me when you're on narcotics?" He asks with a bit of a scolding tone, borderline disappointed. "I'd like to hear this kind of honesty when you're sober, too."
"I can't. It's not that I don't want to be, really - sober me is just a fucking asshole. He doesn't want to be hurt so he hurts people first."
"That sounds like sober Daniel. He's very secretive, isn't he?"
Daniel snorts, closing his eyes. "No ones ever cared about what I think. You're the first one that wants to know what's on my mind."
"Tell me you're sorry again."
"I'm sorry, Armand. For leaving you when I wanted to stay."
"One more."
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry for hurting you."
"Now tell me to come over."
" - " Hesitation. The barest amount. "Come over." He says, deeper than his apology.
"No." He retorts with a haughty kind of cadence, one that inspires some relief.
If only so that he wouldn't have to run around and clean his house while he was this high.
"Please," He says anyway, tucking the phone closer to his sweaty ear. "Come over and you can pull my stitches out with your teeth."
"Convincing," Armand laughs. "But no."
"Can I ask you a stupid question?"
"Only if I can, too."
"Okay. What were you doing with Louis today? In the parking lot?"
It's Armand that hesitates this time. Just the smallest bit, not enough to inspire suspicion but enough for him.
"You mean Mr. Du Lac? The romantics prof?"
"Yeah. What were you guys talking about?"
"You sound jealous."
"Maybe. Am I just one professor in a long line of professors?" He tries to laugh and play it off as a joke but the codeine in his system makes it hard to articulate his tone and it comes off flat and slightly bitter.
"I actually ran into him in the hall after I left your office. I took his Classic's course last semester so he wanted to know if my opinion on Metamorphoses has changed since we last spoke."
"Did he drive you home?"
"He drove me down town."
"And that's all?"
"What else do you want there to be, would you prefer it if we were lovers? Would that make you happy, Daniel?" Armand's voice has the same edge to it and they both seem to regard one another through the phone line with precautionary silence.
"I just don't want to be someone disposable. I'm so fucking - nothing at all. And you're not. You have this whole other life that I'll never be privy to and I just want you all to myself, is that so bad?"
"You're making it really hard not to leave my bed and come see you."
"Can you imagine?"
"Coming to see you?"
"Yeah. I'm such a mess. My place is a mess. Everything is messy."
"Story of your life." Armand laughs, louder and more boisterous than Daniel expects.
"I miss talking to you." Comes the softest of confession's, honesty steeped in desire: the bath is making him more pliant than he usually is and it feels good just listening to Armand breathe on the other end of the line. He's pretty sure he'd be content to fall asleep there, listening to his breathing.
"We talk more than most people."
"It doesn't matter. I can't go a whole day without talking to you anymore, it feels like how good or bad a day is hinges on talking to you."
"I still haven't forgiven you for leaving me the way you did. And then yelling at me. You'll need to make it up before I let you back into my good books."
"Ugh," He groans, putting a wet hand against his eye and rubbing. "Don't remind me. Can we, um - Can we start over? And like, I don't know, do something?"
"I'd like to talk about this in person, Daniel."
"Why?"
"Because you always say these things over the phone and when it comes time for it, you chicken out. Tomorrow. I'll come to your class. Okay?"
There's no choice but to acquiesce, but it isn't like Daniel is being made to. He wants to see Armand. He wants to give him his NDA signed and witnessed.
"Okay. Can we talk before then? On the phone, I mean?"
"Of course we can, why are you asking permission? Just call me."
Daniel nods, though it won't be seen. He's quiet for just a second.
"I'm going to let you go." Daniel starts, weakly.
"I wish you wouldn't."
"I'm in the bath. If I stay in here any longer, I'll probably fall asleep in here and drop my phone in the water."
"Are you going to bed?" Armand asks, yawning just as he does.
"Yeah. I'll probably heat up some leftovers. I'm barely keeping my head up as is."
"Can you just put the phone down while you do your night time routine?" His voice is heavier than before. Armand's accent is slightly thicker, too, a strange sharpness to his articulation that sounds a little cut throat. "I want to listen."
And yet it charms him. Daniel says okay and then tosses his phone over onto the kitchen sink counter, drunkenly pulling himself up out of the tub; imagining what that would sound like to him on the other end of the phone. As he dries himself off with an old towel, he stares at the silence black mirror of his locked phone and wonders how long Armand will stay there. And if Armand wants to talk, if he wants to say goodnight.
The thread between them that connects them to one another seems to throb and pull haphazardly whenever they talk, like the string to a paper phone line; a message hidden in the vibration that runs the length of the thread. He feels Armand's presence as he shuts all his lights off and turns out his bedside light, but when he turns over and unlocks his phone, the call itself is over. The record of their time on the phone is recorded and Daniel stares at those numbers long after he's plugged his phone in.
Connected to Armand, tugging at one end of the line that joins them now in hopes that he feels it, too.