His brother was angry. Simon could hear it in the words Levi spat at him before he reached for the light switch and flipped it. It was more than just turning off the lights, it was forcing Simon to sit in the dark, or break the Shabbat and turn them on. It was Levi trying to control him the only way he knew how anymore. And then, Levi was gone.
The front door shut, Simon sat back and turned his face up toward the ceiling. His brother thought the darkness would be a punishment—it was meant to be, anyway, for Simon’s refusal to yield and let his brother have free run of their bakery. Levi was pushing against the kosher bonds holding him in place, restricting his movements, and Simon knew his brother was mostly furious because Simon would not relent. So, he lashed out, he hurt Simon any way he could. It was just the nature of their relationship anymore, and Simon accepted that.
The darkness wasn’t a punishment, however. It wrapped around him like a safety blanket and held him tight. It was the only time he felt grounded these days—when he was alone in the dark.
Temptation pulled at his edges, dug under his skin. He was viciously homesick for something that was never his, a life that was a fantasy, not a promise. The days before Bubbe called to say she was sick—the weeks, the months, the years where Simon thought maybe he truly had gotten out—stayed with him. Then came the night he sacrificed what he could have had for the sake of the one piece of his family still alive. Bubbe was dead not ten hours, and Simon was at his breaking point.
“If you let my brother live,” he said, not even sure that Hashem was listening, but he was going to try anyway, “if you let him be happy, if you don’t take him away from me, I’ll do whatever you want. This will be my exile. I will give it all up. Just…let Levi have what he wants. Let me keep him.”
He had made the promise of his own accord, desperately terrified because Bubbe was gone and there was only Levi in the empty space that was once his family. He barely remembered what his father looked like anymore, except where he found him in the shadows of Levi’s young face. His father, Elisha, was thirty when Simon had seen him last, and sometimes Levi’s big grin—his full, beautiful laugh—had Simon spiraling all those years into the past when he was at his abba’s knee, or riding his shoulders and feeling like the world would just go on forever.
And Simon wasn’t sure anymore that his brother’s hate and resentment was his fault, but someone needed to shoulder the blame. Something had to be responsible for what had slowly and methodically picked their family apart until there was almost nothing left. With Bubbe’s last breath had gone Simon’s last hope of freedom from ritual and sacrifice.
He told himself this was his choice, but there were days he looked at Levi—days when his brother spat in the face of his observance, of the only thing holding them together—and he hated him. Or at least as close to hate as he could ever get. Logically, though, Simon knew it was mostly his fear of losing Levi.
And maybe it was insanity to believe that if he abstained from eating fucking bacon and turning a light on during Shabbat that Levi would go to his grave an old man, well after Simon did…but it was all he had. Their parents were dead. Their grandmother was dead. It was just the two of them left, and Simon knew he wouldn’t survive another loss.
Rising from the sofa, Simon made his way to his bedroom. He had a small, tea-light candle in the window, and he laid the small shade over it, dimming it to nothing.
His laptop sat on his desk, humming with life. He knew what was on the black screen. He’d watched the video so many times he knew it by heart. Falling onto his back, he sank into the mattress and spread his legs. It was easy enough to wriggle out of his jeans, to kick them to the floor. Levi would be gone most of the night, and this was Simon’s time.
His skin was already hot, needy, desperate. No one had ever touched him before. He rarely touched himself. He was thirty-six and a virgin. He was half-convinced that the