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They meet in the parking lot of some pub in which both of them knew it would’ve been easy to find each other.
It’s not on purpose, it never is. It’s just an awful lot of coincidences, some sick mind game Fate, or God, or whoever the fuck is in charge of all that shit likes to play on them. It’s not like it matters, though.
They both know how this ends –on the floor, among a million empty bottles, with Daniel’s face buried on the ground and Johnny’s teeth buried in his shoulder.
It’s not on purpose, but it happens every time.
***
Johnny’s house is a cemetery of nighttime mistakes and early morning regrets. Small, poorly lighted. Pieces of glass and plastic, and leftover precooked meals, and half-burnt cigarettes.
Daniel feels almost guilty, stepping through the door. He thinks about it every time, thinks about it a lot, about the house, the door, about invading that shrine of slow self-destruction.
He stands there, not moving, and it has to be for far too long each time, because Johnny calls him, and he awakens breathless.
“C’mon, come in ‘fore I change my mind.”
He always says so, and still hasn’t.
Daniel walks through the doorway, because that’s just how it goes.
***
They kiss –it is slow at first but grows faster, demanding, until it is nothing but the ravenous collision of two wounded beasts.
Teeth against teeth, blood against blood.
Daniel holds onto the other man, nails digging in his flesh, preparing for his face or his back to hit the floor, depending on how Johnny decides to push him down.
And Johnny always pushes him down, towering over him the way the sky towers over the sea, like a caged animal courts his first prey.
Their teeth clash again, as Johnny undoes Daniel’s shirt, restless hands, too hungry to wait, to ask, to think. Their mouths meet and it’s almost gentle –Daniel knows that’s the last time they’ll be kissing, tonight. They’ve repeated that same, old dance enough for him to know, as soon as he feels Johnny unbuckle his belt, enough for him to know and count and be sure to hit a second in the exact same moment cold hands meet his skin.
***
Johnny fucks the way he fights –fast, hard, merciless. He fucks him like he wants to break him, destroy him, like he wants it to kill him, like he wants to die.
Daniel barely moves. Barely breathes. Can’t say anything, because all that is to be said is already in the frantic, cadenced sound of their hips meeting, and in the dissonant symphony of heavy breaths and hands crawling on martyred backs again, and again, and again.
He thinks of Amanda –God, he loves her, he really does, so he still doesn’t know how to explain. He’s a husband. He’s a father. There’s no reason for this, for his face to be against the floor and for his body to shiver against that of another man.
Johnny knows that –of course he does. Whispering in his ear, he asks him what is he gonna tell his wife, and laughs, and it feels cruel, cold, beautiful.
The man’s ruining his life, and he’s letting him do it. Worse. Begging. Kneeling down like it’s a prayer, like worship, like it will matter early in the morning, while Daniel fixes his tie and thinks of excuses and Johnny smothers on cigarette smoke and promises sitting on the edge of the bed.
In the end, it is that simple.
***
Before he knows, they’re both panting against each other’s shoulder, letting go of something. An orgasm, a breath, the last shard of dignity.
Moving close enough to hurt.
Close, so close they could kiss, if they wanted to.
But they never do.
***
Then, it’s the same all over again. The shame, the silence, the promise of secrecy that fits so poorly with the knowledge of how everything is going to repeat itself again. Until they’re too tired to deny, too sick to fight, too lonely to be alone.
Again, and again, and again.
Johnny figures Daniel would want to talk about it, but he doesn’t.
So they don’t.