you naked like, a lot, and even though I try to limit myself to only thinking about you while I jerk off once a week, I still do it. And spend way too much time trying to imagine scenarios where you might fuck me. Desert island. Prison. Old-timey British boarding schools.
Oh, you meant like, do I have psychological problems? Uh, no. Of course not. What could possibly give you that idea? Also, please forget everything I just said.
“Ben, Ben, you’re fine. Really.” I tried to infuse as much confidence into my voice as I could. “Seriously, you are now and have always been an amazing friend. Dude, you’ve been traveling the world finally doing the job you worked your ass off to get. Do not apologize to me. I’m—I’m okay. It was stupid, but an accident. You do not need to come home.”
“I want to.”
“Well… don’t.”
“Real convincing argument.”
“Hey dude, I just had my stomach pumped. Cut me some slack.”
“And yet you call this ‘no big deal.’”
“I mean, to be fair, I’m not sure I ever explicitly used those words,” I argued. “It’s like, a modicum of a deal. Not quite a medium deal, but like, more than a little deal, I’ll grant you. Still though, don’t you have like a contract or something? Are you even allowed to leave?”
“Define allowed.”
“Like literally is it permitted in your contract or is you leaving going to put you in legal disputes with Greenleaf Records and have you paying court fees for years?”
“Years? Nah. Definitely not. Months…?”
“Dude. Don’t come home. Really truly times a million, I’m fine. I appreciate the offer and you can babysit me all you want when your tour’s actually over, but seriously. It’s not worth it for you to come all the way back for what, two days? Just to watch me go back to my house and avoid people?”
“I mean, I can think of worse things,” Ben snorted. “If you’re gonna be hiding out from the attention anyway, might as well have company. It would actually be kind of nice to get away from this craziness and just be myself again for a couple days. Hey, we could finally watch Twin Peaks.”
“In two days? I don’t think—wait, what attention?”
“Uhhh, fuck. Um. Did Esther… maybe… mention… the whole video thing?” Ben asked, his voice growing higher and more hesitant with each word.
“Noooo,” I said, starting to feel slightly uneasy. “Should she have? What video thing?”
“Um. Well. So there are maybe, kinda like, a few, uh, videos. Of you. Like, on stage? And then, uh… falling? And then being carried out to an ambulance.”
“Jesus Christ.” My heart sank. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah.” I could hear Ben wincing. “I guess people had their phones at the show, you know. It, um… Well, a bunch of entertainment blogs ran the story. And Esther said something about you being on Channel 9 news?”
“Shit. Did they… did they catch anything from before the show?”
“Before the show? You mean like, before you went on stage?” Ben paused. “No, I don’t think so. Why?”
“Just… curious.”
“Does whatever happened before the show have anything to do with you suddenly deciding to drink your weight in whiskey and pain-killers?”
“It—it doesn’t not have to do with it,” I hedged. “I, um. I don’t really want to talk about it, if that’s okay.”
Understatement of the year. What happened? Oh, you know. Just found out the first guy I’d ever called my boyfriend was fucking someone else the whole time. But don’t worry—he was really polite about it, and extended an invitation for me to join in. Oh, by the way, I like dick, I guess I forgot to tell you for the past seven years.
Ben was quiet, and when he spoke, I got the sense he was picking his words carefully.
“Okay,” he said. “I get that. And if you really don’t want me to come back, I won’t. But I just—I think you should talk to someone. Even if it’s not me. I just—I love you man. I don’t know what I’d do if something—”
“Eww, gross, stop,” I interrupted him. “If we’re segueing into the feelings portion of the program, I’d be just as happy to skip that part.”
“Figures,” Ben snorted. “Okay, fine. You don’t actually mean that much to me and I couldn’t care less what happens to you. Is that better?”
“Much,” I said, heaving a sigh of relief. “You have no idea.”
“Just—just promise you’ll think about what I said, okay? About talking to someone?”
“I pinky swear,” I said, rolling my eyes.
And,