don’t give me nonsense about not having a uterus. Rabbi Cohen’s son is married and they’re both…what do you call it when the person is a man born with a penis…?”
Jesus. “Cis, Mom. They’re both cis.”
“Yes. Cis men—gay. They have beautiful twin girls. He’s always showing off their pictures, and I’d like to be that bubbe someday, irritating all my friends with fat cheeks and gummy smiles.”
He presses a hand to his forehead, but he can’t stop a sudden image of him and Alejandro and a kid. He’s never really wanted one, to be honest. He wants to travel and work and dig his hands in ancient ruins.
But it doesn’t take a lot of struggle to imagine what Alejandro would be like as a dad. He’s a mess, sure, but something tells Avery he’d be fucking good at it. And, God, that makes him feel things. Yes, he wants to do more with his life than settle down with a mortgage and a white picket fence, but not forever.
“Do we have to do this right now?” he breathes out, his whole body desperate to just shut down and sleep until the pain stops pressing against his heart.
“Yes,” she says, “but I’ll leave it at that because I know you’re tired.” There’s a pause, and then she sighs. “I’m just worried about you, sweetheart. Your dad and I love you and miss you. A lot.”
And well, he wasn’t expecting the burning at the back of his throat, and for a second, he thinks he should just go ahead and change his plans because what the fuck does it matter? Alejandro hasn’t put the money in his account yet, but he hasn’t called or texted or showed any indication he remembers that Avery even exists.
He could go. He should go. He should have gone the year before too, because Alejandro made it perfectly clear he had no intention of spending time with Avery during the holidays. He’d only been upset when he realized Avery had waited around.
“I miss you too,” he finally says, like a fool. “Next year, okay? I promise.”
He hates himself for holding on to this ghost of hope that their sex changed something—that it meant something more than one night of pleasure. But he knows it didn’t. It’s that thing Alejandro had told him about the night before. Maladaptive coping. He’d looked it up after he got home and saw it was just putting a Band-Aid on the actual problem. And well, that sums up what he’s been doing this whole time better than anything.
“Fine, but promise me you’re taking care of yourself too,” she insists.
“As well as I always do,” he tells her, and it’s not enough but she accepts it. “I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”
“Alright,” she says from behind a sigh, and he knows then she’ll let it go, at least for a little while.
He hangs up and lets the phone clatter to the floor, then closes his eyes and wishes he was tired enough to sleep. He didn’t get much after getting back to his place, instead laying in his bed and pressing his fingers into aches Alejandro left behind. They all hurt so beautifully. He found a few bruises and tender spots, and he pushed on them as he shoved a dildo into his ass and clenched around it, coming all over his sheets. The orgasm paled in comparison to the one he had with Alejandro’s cock inside him, but now he has tangible memories to go with his fantasy.
And he doesn’t know how he’s supposed to fuck another guy now that he knows what Alejandro’s mouth tastes like. How the hell will anyone compare to the way Alejandro’s fingers feel leaving marks on him and how full his ass is with his cock stuffed all the way up there?
What does he do now that he knows what Alejandro sounds like when he’s lost in ecstasy, and what noises he makes when he comes?
The one thing Avery had going for him was that everything he’d known before that moment had been imagined. If the reality had been worse, he might have been able to walk away, but God help him, it was so much better.
He’s hard again, and he starts to shove his hand under the waistband of his sweats when the door buzzer sounds. No one ever actually comes over, so he forgets how fucking loud it is. The noise startles him so badly he falls onto the floor, and he lets out a