Platonic (4 page)

Knowing Patrick graduated
summa cum laude
a couple of years ago and wishing to know how, Mark takes advantage of their time together without guilt. He learns things about himself and about Patrick, about sex. He asks for things he usually wouldn’t because it seems as if there is so much less to lose and because Patrick coaxes him into it. His time with Patrick teaches him how to communicate better than any of his prior “real” relationships have.

They get drunk on the sofa one night while watching an old black and white movie on TV.

“So how is this different from having an actual, in-love romantic relationship?” Mark asks, his hands around Patrick’s ankles as they rest in his lap, slowly rubbing the smooth skin there. He knows it’s different; it feels different, it feels easier, but he isn’t sure how.

“Commitment. I don’t want to marry you,” Patrick says and stretches for the vodka bottle.

“That’s good,” Mark says. His words feel heavy on his tongue and his mind feels slow. “I don’t want to marry you either.”

“That’s a relief. At the start I think you did. You kinda came at the whole thing backwards, if you think about it.”

“Hey!” Mark pinches Patrick’s calf.

“You happy with this?”

“Yeah.” He means it. “I’m just trying to figure it out.”

“This is easy. No marriage, no kids, no nothing. Don’t get me wrong, you’re an incredible lay and I like your brain, but if you left tomorrow I’d be okay with that.”

“That’s ‘cause you have all your other fuck-buddies.”

Passing the vodka to Mark so he can take a swig, Patrick doesn’t deny it.

“You’d miss me if I died,” Mark remarks a few minutes later.

Patrick laughs, unfazed. “Yeah, I’d be upset, I really would. But I wouldn’t be heartbroken.”

“We’re not that good friends?”

“Not yet.”

Mark humphs and kisses the top of one of Patrick’s big toes.

“So how come you were so desperate to marry me?” Patrick asks.

“I wasn’t—”

“Yeah, you were.”

“I want that,” Mark admits, his voice immediately tight and small with the admission. “I want the wedding and the children and the house.”

“You’re what? Twenty-three? You’re supposed to be having fun.”

Mark just stares at Patrick’s feet and tries to think why he hasn’t been having fun for the last few years. Sure, he can blame his parents—his father especially—and his own dedication to his studies. But Stanford has its fair share of fun; he makes friends easily and he knows he doesn’t have to study quite as hard as he does, not all the time. Patrick means relationships, though, means having sex for the sake of it, and that has never seemed to fit Mark. Not until now. He wonders if perhaps this is one more thing to add to the list of things that are not quite right with him. He wonders if being so deeply in love at sixteen, as he had been, might inevitably make you chase that feeling forever.

“Who was before me?”

“What?”

“Full relationship history,” Patrick days, “Go.”

“What do you care? We’re just fuck-buddies.”

“I’m putting the emphasis on the ‘buddies’ bit of it right now.”

Mark works backwards, steeling himself because he knows he’s about to be laughed at for the brevity of the list, but forcing himself because he knows he shouldn’t be ashamed, even if he regrets almost all of it.

Antonio was the last man he dated, two years ago during his senior year of college. It had lasted for all of five months before Mark recognized the complete absence of love in the relationship and ended it without so much as a restless night. The fact that Antonio had just shrugged it off and been out at the sleaziest bars the following week had only left Mark wondering why he’d let it go on as long as it had.

Before that, it was Dale for two weeks in the fall because he had the bluest eyes and liked all the same music Mark did, loved leaving fingerprints on him and the imprint of teeth at the top of his spine. Mark had fallen fast and told Dale he wanted a real relationship, for them to be boyfriends with a future, after only a week of long, rambling dates and the very best sorts of sex. Dale had agreed, but five days later, a week before Mark turned twenty, he’d caught Dale in the dormitory showers with another guy.

Before him was Jason. Mark met Jason two weeks into his freshman year at Stanford. They both liked to sit in the back of the room at the introductory poly-sci lectures and scratch continuous notes and doodles onto thick pads of paper. During one lecture, Mark caught Jason’s eye and smiled. At the next one, Jason sat down next to him and introduced himself and they shook hands.

Two months later, new, mutual friends surrounded them, their classes seemed easy and campus life felt exhilarating. They held hands and went on dates and Mark was sure he was in love even if he never said it out loud. They kissed for hours but didn’t take it further until after Christmas, and when they did, it didn’t click the way Mark knew it could. The sex was awkward, unsatisfying and forced; they never laughed, and neither of them was prepared to talk about it.

They fought about it once. In the end Mark cheated on Jason—an anonymous one-night stand, which he’d always thought he could never even
want
to have—because his skin ached with touch-starvation and his heart was confused. He felt awful for a month, and then Jason left him, citing ideological differences.

All too quickly, Jason took up with a rich girl from Seattle. The whispers on campus eventually confirmed that they’d been hooking up for months.

***

Mark sighs and Patrick turns farther in his seat to face him. “Are you pissed off because he ran off with a girl?”

Sighing again, Mark works his hands tighter, rougher around the arch of Patrick’s foot. “No—”

“So, because she’s rich?” Patrick asks.

“No. Jesus. I’m pissed because I wasted nine months of my life.”

“Okay, because we’re talking full disclosure: I absolutely sleep with any and all rich people, women included.” Patrick pauses, wriggles his toes and smirks. “At least you don’t have to worry about me cheating on you, because this is never gonna be an exclusive thing.”

Mark stares at him. “That’s…” Part of him wants to punch Patrick in the arm, hard. “The thing with Jason upset me because I was under the impression we were taking it seriously.”

“To be fair, you were under that impression with me.”

Mark just glowers until Patrick laughs and backs off. “So before Jason was just high school in Illinois?” Mark nods and doesn’t elaborate even though there’s a tightness in his belly, a scratch of the real story at the back of his throat. He’s already sunk into a bad mood and he expects Patrick to probe at him anyway. And wanting to tell this particular story is new, the inclination not entirely welcome.

“And you didn’t fool around at all between boyfriends? No one-night stands?” Mark shakes his head and Patrick huffs his disbelief. “Not even some casual fooling around at a bar? Sexy dancing?”

Mark is still shaking his head. “Quit judging me.”

“I’m not; I’m just surprised. With the way you look you should be picking up left, right and center.”

“Cut it out.”

“Dude, learn to take a compliment. You’re hot, I think you’re hot and I’m allowed to say it. You’re allowed to enjoy hearing it and you do not need to tell me I’m wrong.”

They fall back into silence as the movie ends and another begins.

“So…” Patrick begins again. “Have you ever been in love?”

Mark scrubs his hands over his face, wincing at the faint smell of feet on them, and pushes Patrick’s calves off his lap. His mind races even as he sets his mouth into a grimace. He can’t even remember the last time he said the name out loud; he has never told this story to anyone. He just says, “Yeah, once,” and wonders where the conversation will go.

“Really?” Patrick sounds surprised. “Which one?”

“The one I didn’t mention. The one in high school.”

“
Really?
” He sounds intrigued. Mark is surprised that Patrick hasn’t immediately mocked him for having had a high school sweetheart, for the very idea that he could feel the kind of love they are talking about as a teenager. He knows that Patrick just sees this as a puzzle and doesn’t quite realize that it’s still awful for Mark, stings deep in his heart even though he tells it to stop. Mark figures that this is what makes him want to talk about it, even as he recognizes that thinking about it is worse than pointless, just a black hole of self-loathing and regret. But Patrick is smart, and holding his attention with anything at all would usually seem like an accomplishment—anytime except now, when he’s drunk and already feeling the throb of a headache.

“Really.” Mark stands up and takes one last gulp from the bottle of vodka. He suddenly feels far too sober, considering how empty it looks.

“What happened?”

“I fucked it up.”

CHAPTER 3

Patrick is gorgeous—Mark has to admit it. If Patrick were at all amenable to the romance thing and not a lawyer and not quite so much of a dick, if he were a bit more sarcastic and a bit more of a nerd and a little less arrogant, Mark is pretty sure he’d make a great husband. As it is, he makes a good friend and a fantastic ongoing fuck.

He’s all dark skin and hard muscle. There’s even less fat on him than Mark had guessed on that first night, and now that he’s had dozens of chances to search every angle and curve of Patrick’s body, he’s pretty sure Patrick’s wasting his time fooling around with him.

Patrick is godlike and knows his way around another man’s body as if it’s his profession. It’s glorious, and Mark learns quickly, eager to please and be liked. Patrick judges him for that, pushes him off and back with a growl, kisses him hard and just slicks their bodies together with sweat and the hard grind of muscle on muscle. He takes what he needs and refuses to let Mark give him more. He talks to him while they fuck, explaining the difference between wanting and needing and the importance of both; he rambles about give and take as though it’s philosophy and Mark would laugh at him except sometimes it sounds like poetry and it’s always hot as fuck.

And it resonates with Mark, seeps through his skin and makes him selfish some nights, makes him try on the idea of flopping back on an unmade bed and letting himself go wanton, trusting that Patrick will like him, will give him pleasure just the same. It’s bizarre and makes no sense in light of Patrick’s character, but the times Mark is most selfish are the times Patrick grins wolfishly at him and then wraps his body in his arms and fucks him the best.

Patrick goes jogging with him as well, insists on it early in the morning and late at night when both of them have too much law on their minds or when Mark whines too loudly over the perfection of Patrick’s muscles and the softness of his own. They run and run through the undulating streets of Patrick’s neighborhood and when they get home Patrick always pushes Mark up against the bathroom wall and gives more to him than usual. He licks the sweat from everywhere on Mark’s skin, forcing him to accept every whispered, worshipping compliment by kissing him into silence when he starts to protest.

***

The first Friday after Christmas, Mark forgoes the usual trip to the bar, not caring that it’s obvious his friends are starting to suspect something approximating the truth. He catches a bus toward San Jose, and Patrick is waiting for him when he gets off.

They go back to Patrick’s. As much as Mark feels like shit, weighed down with work and family bullshit, Patrick, for once, looks worse for wear. He didn’t make it home for Christmas at all and when Mark asks, all he’ll say is that it’s “work.”

Patrick doesn’t talk much about what that means, having explained to Mark once that his professional life and his fun stay completely separate and that’s how he likes it. Mark is, of course, the one small exception to that rule. And that rule is one more reason Mark can no longer see himself with Patrick. He needs to share someone’s passion, to hear about it, to fall in love with it. Even though they talk plenty about law in the abstract, not knowing what makes Patrick tick is infuriating.

“What do you want?” Mark asks, already starting to tug his belt loose.

Patrick stops him with a smile and a raised hand. “Wine first.”

They hardly ever drink wine. This one is a nice, rich red and its warmth goes straight into their veins, warming their bellies. When Patrick opens a second bottle, it’s obvious he’s trying to get Mark drunk, and Mark doesn’t try to stop him. His eyes keep flitting to the coil of climbing rope sitting on the kitchen table. He thinks—if he’s honest, he hopes—Patrick is going to get him drunk, tie him to the bed and fuck him until he’s incoherent and lost.

When the second bottle is almost finished, he asks, point-blank: “You’re getting me drunk so you can tie me up?”

Patrick laughs and says, “You’d do that sober.” He waits a beat, watches Mark swallow. “Tell me about the guy who broke your heart, back in Illinois.”

Mark feels himself tense all over, his skin tighten and his stomach drop to his feet. He hadn’t expected the question or his own overreaction. “He didn’t break my heart,” is all he says.

Patrick just rolls his eyes and snarks right back: “Fine, whatever.” The anger and disappointment from Patrick only add to Mark’s hurt. Still, Patrick finishes his glass and goes to get the rope.

He only lets Mark come once that night, but it feels so good anyway, and the glide into sleep feels even better. So it doesn’t really matter.

***

“What was his name?”

Mark stares across the bar at the liquor bottles lined up in technicolor and avoids Patrick’s gaze. He tries to remember what they’re talking about. He can’t and his head is starting to ache. “Who?”

“The boy in Illinois.”

They haven’t talked about it in a couple of months, but Mark knew it would come up again and he’s been thinking about whether he should shut down the conversation for good and risk truly pissing Patrick off or whether it’s time to try telling the story out loud. He knows it so well, but he’s never spoken the words, never let someone on the outside judge him for his fuckups and feel sorry for his aching. Perhaps it’s time.