mine and pulls my hands down to my sides, next to my hips. He holds them down to the bed and puts his face back between my legs and he licks and licks and licks me, slow and soft and steady, and I can’t help it, something inside of me lets go and now I’m super, extra loud. Like, really loud. I just let go, and this is just like when I sing—I’m gone and there’s nothing left of me but feeling and the sound of my voice. But I’m not singing now, I’m saying things like, “Oh Jesus, oh my fucking God, oh Travis, I’m coming, I’m coming,” and then I am, all over his tongue. When it’s over he’s right next to me, kissing me on the forehead, holding my hand. We can hear Holly Hunter downstairs on the TV crying, “I love him so mu-u-u-u-uch . . .”
And we both laugh because, obviously, somebody has turned the TV all the way up. Oh well.
I think this is the pause before he grabs his wallet and takes a condom out, but he doesn’t do that. He lays there next to me, looking at me all quiet and thoughtful. He’s still holding on to my hand. I turn to him, open my mouth to speak, and if I could turn back time, yeah, if I could find a way, I’d take back those words that were so fucking stupid, I still cringe when I remember them to this day.
“Maybe we can just be bandmates with benefits,” I say in this light, joking manner.
His face turns dark like it’s in the shadow of my own stupid.
“Bandmates with benefits?” he says. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah,” I say. “No? What’s the right answer?”
“The right answer is that you want more from me than just benefits.”
“I have a lot more from you already,” I say. “That’s the point. I have the best guitarist in New Brunswick. I have you in a band that I love like my own family. What more can I ask than that?”
“Plenty,” he says. “If you actually wanted more.”
I don’t know what to say, because right before this moment I felt like I finally had it all. I thought I’d figured it all out. As my guitarist, I’ve managed to hold on to Travis for two years. Two whole years. I’ve never had a boyfriend that long. Remember Josh? That was horrible, and then he dumped me. He dumped me! I didn’t even like him by the time he dumped me, but I was still really fucked up over that. I just can’t imagine how I’m going to deal if Travis becomes my boyfriend and then he dumps me, too. Not only would I lose him, I wouldn’t even have a band anymore. And the likelihood of me doing something stupid and losing Travis, well, I think it’s pretty obvious just how realistic that scenario is.
“I’ve got everything I want now with the way things are,” I say. “Don’t you?”
“No,” he says. “I don’t.”
I can’t lay here naked with him looking all pissed off like this. I get up and pull a T-shirt and pajama bottoms on as he waits for me to say something else. Something better. I know what he wants to hear—he wants me to say, Oh, Travis, you’re the love of my life, yes, of course I want to be your girlfriend. If the band doesn’t work out, so be it. You’re all that matters. And you know something? He does matter. He matters to me more than anyone or anything, but the problem here is, if things don’t work out with him, where will I be then? How am I going to deal with that? I’ll lose my best friend and my band. And no. Just no.
I wish I was the kind of person who gets quiet and thoughtful when I get nervous, but I’m not. At all. I’m a rambler, because of course I am. So now as I’m having a panic attack, I’m saying things right as they pop into my head because this is Travis here, and I have never had to be careful with him. I haven’t learned how to be careful with him. In fact, I haven’t even learned yet that there are times when I should be careful with him. With him I have no filters, there are no games. There never have been games between us. Not until now. Not until I fucked him and fucked everything between