FORTY-THREE

 

 

PASCAL WAS HYPER-AWARE of Gabriel-Antoine as they went into his room. Gabriel-Antoine brushed his teeth, washed himself with a sponge as Pascal turned away, hot-faced and awkward. He wanted the light off. He needed to have his face smooth. He wanted to be invisible. But he also wanted to touch Gabriel-Antoine. Feet padded up behind him. A hand touched his shoulder.

“You okay?” Gabriel-Antoine asked in a low voice.

Pascal nodded, then looked back and smiled nervously. Gabriel-Antoine’s face was close.

“I’m going to clean up,” he said, and felt his whisper flounder and fade.

Gabriel-Antoine didn’t follow him to the head. Pascal shut off the lights.

“What are you doing?” Gabriel-Antoine whispered.

“Just a sec.”

With shaking hands and clenched eyes, Pascal lightly lathered his face, and stroke by stroke, scraped away stubble with the straight razor. It was the worst sound in the world, and he couldn’t imagine Gabriel-Antoine not being disgusted with him. It wasn’t a sound Pascal could run from. He felt the sound. His skin felt it. His bones felt it like a fork scratching across a plate. He was so aware of Gabriel-Antoine that his hands shook until he cut himself.

“Hey, cutie,” Gabriel-Antoine said. “You already shaved this morning.”

“I’m almost done.”

“Leave it on.”

Pascal’s stomach turned. “I’m almost done.” But he wasn’t. He lathered his chest and arms quickly, scraping himself smooth with swift strokes. But Gabriel-Antoine was listening. Thinking he was strange. As strange as Pascal really felt.

“I’m, uh, really happy we went down,” Gabriel-Antoine said into the awkwardness. “You don’t know what that was for me.”

“I’m sorry you didn’t see the stars,” Pascal said.

“One day I will,” Gabriel-Antoine said.

His voice was closer, although Pascal hadn’t heard him approach. In a panic, he wiped off the last of the lather, and self-consciously touched his face and neck, looking for ugly stiff patches he might have missed. Then, his chest and stomach and arms. Tiny patches of soft stubble found his fingers and he felt uglier.

“You believe us?”

“One day we’ll see them together,” Gabriel-Antoine said from just behind him.

Pascal’s hands trembled so much that he dropped the case of tooth polish instead of shutting it. Gabriel-Antoine’s fingertips touched Pascal’s arms, sliding up the smoothness, making Pascal shiver. Pascal jammed the toothbrush into his mouth and tried to move casually. Gabriel-Antoine’s mouth was behind Pascal’s ear.

“I’ve seen the stars my whole life without seeing them,” Gabriel-Antoine said.

Gabriel-Antoine’s warm chest pressed against Pascal’s unshaved back. He dropped the toothbrush and turned against him. They were of a height and their noses were close. Pascal swallowed his toothpaste.

“You really didn’t use that line before?” Pascal whispered.

Gabriel-Antoine shook his head. His grin was bright in the gloom. The sounds of quiet conversation in the main area drifted in through the curtain, along with weak light.

“You seem to have a lot of words to turn someone’s heart,” Pascal said.

“I only want to turn yours.”

Whether it was true or not, Pascal wanted it to be. Gabriel-Antoine was handsome. Smart. Funny. Daring. And they’d gone to the surface together. Pascal felt his nervous heart beating so fast he wanted to scrunch into a ball, and he didn’t want any of this to end. He neared his mouth to Gabriel-Antoine’s and touched hesitantly. Gabriel-Antoine responded, pressing back more tentatively than his words. And Pascal pressed back at him, harder, putting his arms around him. After a few moments they parted. Pascal was hardening. He pulled away in embarrassment. Gabriel-Antoine leaned against the wash station beside him and stroked a thumb across Pascal’s smooth face.

“You want to help me build the caps?” Pascal said, to fill the air with something other than his awkwardness. It sounded stupid.

Gabriel-Antoine nodded, an inscrutable gesture in the three-quarter darkness.

“It’s upside down,” Gabriel-Antoine said. “Wind and stars beneath the ground. It’s magic. You’ve shown me the magic Venus has been hiding from us. And my life has been upside down since you walked in.”

“Sorry,” Pascal said, smiling sheepishly.

“I was tired of life being right-side up. I didn’t know it but I’d been waiting for some angel to come along and save me from fixing ovens.”

Pascal laughed low. “I’m no angel.”

Gabriel-Antoine neared again, pressing his chest against Pascal’s, and his lips to his.

“You have wings,” he whispered. “You make me feel like a live wire.”

“I feel like I’m close to getting electrocuted,” Pascal said, resting his forehead against Gabriel-Antoine’s.

“The tough cutie from the lower clouds in danger?” Gabriel-Antoine scoffed. “I feel like I want to protect you, but that you could keep me alive down here with one hand behind your back.”

“I’ll protect you.”

Gabriel-Antoine’s hand slid down Pascal’s flat stomach, looking for the hardness down there, but Pascal’s hand caught his wrist.

“I just want to make you feel good,” Gabriel-Antoine whispered.

Pascal shook his head against Gabriel-Antoine’s.

“You like men, don’t you?”

“I like men,” Pascal finally whispered.

“So do I. You like me, don’t you?”

“I like you.”

“Then let me make you feel good.”

Gabriel-Antoine’s hand tried again, but Pascal was strong enough to hold him back, barely. Then his other hand shot out, tickling, and Pascal twisted and caught the other hand too, and they were stalemated, breathing harder, trying not to make any noise that would be heard in the main area.

“I don’t like me,” Pascal finally whispered in terror, “down there.”

“I’ve seen you,” Gabriel-Antoine said. “You’re beautiful.”

Pascal shook his head. His heart pounded in his throat. He didn’t want this night to end. He wanted to be more to Gabriel-Antoine. He didn’t want to poison anything forming between them with all the blackness and wrongness inside of him. He gently released both of Gabriel-Antoine’s hands.

“Let’s move to your hammock,” Pascal said. “Teach me to make you feel good.”

“That’s a bit one-sided.”

“This is what I can do. Please be patient. Please. This is what I want.”

“Okay, chéri,” Gabriel-Antoine whispered in his ear before he began nibbling and kissing there.

They walked awkwardly, a four-legged thing clinging desperately to itself, before Gabriel-Antoine fell back into his hammock.