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“Your driving will be the death of me,” Tommy tells me, after we’ve parked, having been racing through the streets. I like to go real fast, I think it’s fun. I’ve had so many speeding tickets in my life but so far nobody seems to have seen us tonight. Tommy has been acting a little weird all morning but I haven’t called him up on it. It’s sunny today. People are out but they can’t see us through our tinted windows. I like watching them. Opposite from where we’ve parked, haphazardly in an abandoned parking lot (I really struggle with parking, it makes me scream), there’s a bar filled with people already drinking this early in the day. I can hardly believe it; 11am drinking. Who would do that?
“You had fun and you know it,” I say. Who wants to drive slow? Nobody. It’s frustrating but driving fast is exciting. It makes me feel like I’m in a car chase, although I have been in a real car chase before. It was exciting then, too, but I was in the back.
“You don’t know what I know,” Tommy says. I giggle in response to that, looking at some people who are sharing a whole… big jug thing. I’ve forgotten what they’re called, but they’re for parties, not for 11am. Maybe they’re celebrating something. I wish I knew what they were celebrating, or if they’re not, what possessed them to order that. I wish I could live like somebody else for a day. That I could become that woman across the street and understand what she thinks and feels, suffer her responsibilities instead of my own. I can’t do that.
“Do you ever wonder-“ I begin, but I get interrupted, which is a pet hate of mine.
“Michael,” Tommy says. “I need to talk to you about something. Something that’s pissed me off.”
I huff, irritated, and restart my sentence. “Do you ever wonder what it’s like to be somebody else? To follow their thought process, understand their decisions? I never understand anybody’s decisions and I just wish I did. Other people don’t make sense to me.”
“Michael,” Tommy says, ignoring me the way I ignored him, but grabbing my chin to make me look at him rather than across the road. I frown and lift my hand to hold onto his forearm. “I heard a voicemail some guy left on your phone last night.”
I gasp. “You listened to my private voicemail?”
“By accident,” Tommy clarifies. Now I’m worried that other people will just start picking up my calls and hearing my voicemails by accident. How could I avoid that? I wonder if my secretary has ever heard anything she shouldn’t have and hasn’t told me. “It was some guy called Eddie. He said he missed you and he loved you, that he’s waited for you and hopes he still has a chance with you. That you haven’t been calling him as much recently.”
“Thank you for relaying it. I’ll call him back tomorrow,” I say. If I have time, I think I will. Tommy still doesn’t let go of his grip on me.
“He doesn’t have a chance with you, does he?” Tommy asks, sounding suddenly quite worried. Slightly aggravated. “You’re with me. We’re together. You wouldn’t two time me. You’re… you’re good. You wouldn’t do that. You’re kind and gentle.”
“Of course I wouldn’t do that,” I agree. I’m not sure I like his tone. He pulls me forward suddenly and crushes my lips against his, then pulls away. I gently start trying to break free.
“I just love you. So much,” Tommy says, sounding quite emotional about it. I’m over Eddie. We’re still friends and I’ll call him, and I hope we’re still close, but I’m past it, romantically. I don’t really want to tell him that though, in case I hurt his feelings. I’m hoping he’ll just work it out for himself. “You’re- you’re literally my everything. You don’t want that other guy. He sounded really drunk.”
He probably was. He probably doesn’t remember calling.
“I love you, too, very much,” I answer. “Come on, don’t sound upset. Why are you upset?”
“I didn’t know you had other guys around,” Tommy says. I don’t, not really. Eddie isn’t around, is he? He’s in Bel Air. It’s none of Tommy’s business. “It hurts my feelings.”
“It’s none of your business, Tommy. I’m with you right now, aren’t I? So cool it,” I say, gently rubbing his arm, as he moves his hand to touch my cheek tenderly. I lean into his touch.
"I want to fuck you right here in this car," he says. I blush, startled. Not a car, in this public place. “I want to push the chairs down and lay you onto them, I want to fuck while you face me so I can see your expressions, I want to make you scream – but you always scream, don’t you – and roll down the windows so everybody can hear you in this parking lot in the light of morning, getting thoroughly railed by your dancer, your employee.” Despite myself, his description of events does make my heartbeat quicken. I want him. “I want them to hear the way you whimper when you’re done. I know you could give them a show.”
I don’t answer, I just lean forward and kiss him, letting him wrap his arm around my waist, his hand pressed up against the small of my back. After a minute he pulls me over to straddle his lap, and I glance outside, feeling that it might be too much.
“They can’t see us, baby,” Tommy reminds me. I look back at him. I’m kneeling up, on alert, and he’s rubbing my ass. “But I wish they could. I wish they could see you being mine.” He grabs my ass suddenly, quite hard, and I take a sharp intake of breath because it was slightly painful. He shoves me to the side, pushing me there, and I fall against his door and have to straighten up, glaring at him. Then he does it again, rough.
“What are you doing?” I ask, straightening up again, settling properly onto him so I’m more difficult to just push over. He looks very conflicted. “What was that for? That hurt.” I don’t know what to think of him when he behaves this way, like he wants to hurt me to prove that he’s capable of affecting me at all.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he says, sighing, gently massaging his thumb into my ribs. “I just want you to be mine. I know I’m acting weird. I just need you so much.”
That feels like a line I’m not falling for, but he takes both of my hands suddenly and stuffs down the front of his pants, forcing me almost onto all fours, face in his face. I close my eyes and exhale, able to feel that he’s a little hard. I softly kiss his bottom lip, and I feel him get harder. It’s immensely satisfying. I feel guiltier every second, sickened by own behaviour – I’m on all fours in a car, both my hands down some man’s trousers, allowing myself to be turned on by it. I want to go to confession. It’s been too long. I need to confess this.
“Tommy, this is real bad, this is bad news,” I say. I’m already conflicted about homosexual sex, pre-marital sex, but doing both of those things, at once, in a car, I’m not sure I even recognise myself. He rubs his hand between my legs, and I exhale. We shouldn’t. “We really shouldn’t.”
“Loosen up,” Tommy whispers. He pushes the seat all the way back and shifts, pushing me onto my back on the seat and climbing on top of me. I glance at the window to check they’re as tinted as I think they are. That looks completely black from the outside, doesn’t it? He rubs between my legs again, moaning softly. I shift my hips. My body is buzzing. “Smile, Michael. Let it feel good. Be happy.”
I’m not a particularly happy person. Everything makes me a little sad and a little guilty. I do want to have fun with him. Sometimes I think he likes sex too much and I wonder why he’s so addicted to the feeling. Some people are like that. A lot of people are, in relationships. I’m not.
“Don’t look so worried, nobody can see,” Tommy says, laughing softly. He shifts again, legs either side of my hips, and grinds against me. We groan simultaneously. “I’ll look after you, come on, don’t I always?”
He is good to me. I put my hand behind his neck and make him kiss me again as we grind against each other with perfect rhythm, the radio on behind him. I don’t know how I let things run away with me like this, how I could let this happen, I should be focusing on the tour, not having an affair with my dancer. He kisses me so hard that my lips seem to bruise, pressing against me with his hips harder every time.
“I just wish I could fuck you in front of a crowd,” he whispers, a favourite fantasy of his, one that I do not subscribe to and couldn’t even pretend to be into. The very thought makes me blush. “They’d all see you like this, at your most beautiful, your musical cries. They’d see you suck my fingers…” he breathes, gently hooking two of his fingers into my mouth, which I do suck on, “so that I can ready you to be fucked with them. They’d know how much you want it, helping me along. They’ll know that I am going to make you cum and that you want me to. They’d see you scream my name and lose your inhibitions and need me, brought down from your commanding position centre stage to be nothing more than my bitch.”
He presses his hard-on into my thigh; as he spoke, it had gotten more and more aggressive. I wonder what the psychology behind such fantasies are. He wants to be in charge. He wants to top me and own me. Maybe he even wants to humiliate me.
“Why do you dream up these things?” I murmur, as he unzips my trousers with one of his hands, his other hand still toying with my lips. “Why do you want that? Isn’t the car risky enough?”
“I don’t really want it. It’s a fantasy,” Tommy murmurs, but alarm bells are ringing in the back of my mind. He will tell the world that he fucked me in the back of a car, that he used my spit as lube which I voluntarily offered to him. Paranoia suddenly fills my head and I glance around for cameras, but no, of course not. Tommy would never. Nobody would believe him anyway. I wouldn’t do something like this. I’m a good, God-fearing person. I wouldn’t do something like this and it isn’t really happening. I’m in the dance studio right now. I’m in the dance studio right now.
After unzipping my trousers, he runs his hand over my underwear and I bite his two fingers in my mouth, stressed. Who am I? What am I doing? I don’t need this. But his touch is gentle and comforting and it pleasures me. I shiver.
“I like you best like this, you know,” he tells me. I want to point out how convenient that is for him, that I should be at my best this way, but I don’t. I shimmy out of my trousers and underwear when he gestures for me to and then he’s lifting my legs onto his shoulders, pressing a kiss to the inside of my knee. “What do you want?”
“For you to be gentle with me,” I answer. He smiles and moves his hand from my lips, down to my entrance. I’m not as tight as I could be because he’s done this recently and that makes me hate myself, makes me suddenly want to escape – I don’t want to be easy like this. But I don’t say anything, I let him continue. He looks so handsome. He leans down and licks my tip spontaneously as one of his fingers enters me and my back arches, I didn’t expect him to do that. His other hand is rubbing my thigh. All of it feels good and dangerous at once. I shouldn’t be doing it, that much I know. It makes me question things – Tommy is a good man but does things like this easily. Do I think I’m a better man than Tommy if I refuse? I try to never think myself better than anybody, but if I don’t think of myself as better, isn’t that a contradiction? Why is religion so confusing? I grew up with Mother telling me to look upon everybody with kindness, but I know she could be judgemental. Am I judgemental? I’m not perfect. Nobody is. I try.
I’m forced out of my reverie as another finger of his enters me, making me cry out. His lips meet mine and I wrap my arm around his neck, holding him there. He’s twice my size and I feel so small beneath him. Maybe I like feeling that way, it makes me feel safe and protected when my partner feels so physically capable. I like feeling easily victimised because I like, and I know I do, indulging in being a victim. If I don’t, my pain feels invalid, and I have so much pain, so much pain, and even this hurts as he bites my lip and holds me close and I hold him as tightly as I physically can.
“You ready, baby?” he asks me softly. No, not at all. I shouldn’t be here but it’s too late. Tommy is a good man. Even as he’s doing this, he’s a good man. I really believe that.
“I’m ready,” I breathe into his ear. He’s kissing my neck now but then he straightens up, looking down on me as he enters me. He laughs when I cry out, his eyes sparkling with fondness, the line of his mouth amused.
“You’re so loud,” he tells me. I don’t appreciate that. It’s also the first time in my life anybody has ever called me loud. He presses his hand to my mouth as he starts to fuck me and I breathe through my nose. “Just because people can’t see in here doesn’t mean they can’t hear us, Michael.”
I hate being called by my name during sex like this. I like to think that if my name is never mentioned, God can’t tell that I’m doing it, and now Tommy has gone and drawn His attention right to me and my sins.
My upset is distracted immediately because once Tommy is inside me, he’s magical, like always, and I lose myself to it. He’s holding me down with his hand on my mouth and my body is writhing, rocking up onto him as he tips his head back and looks up to the ceiling, I don’t understand how he’s so quiet, his breathing heavy and his grunts soft, even as he’s slamming onto me with incredible aggression, controlled as ever, but I wonder if one day he’ll lose that control. Are we going to have to clean this car later? Surely I can’t ask somebody else to it? ‘Cause then they’ll know.
I finish before Tommy does, but he doesn’t last long after me. I scream when I do and he murmurs “fuck yes, baby”, and once I’ve gone quieter he pulls my trembling body into his and he finishes soon after, inside me, which makes me bite his shoulder as he moans loudly right into my ear. Then we’re quiet and panting and I whisper “sorry” for biting him. He laughs breathlessly.
“I don’t mind,” he promises. I’m wrestling with my guilt but when he’s holding me like this, so tenderly, I don’t see how anything with our relationship could possibly be wrong. Except, perhaps, his attitude sometimes. Of course I know he isn’t perfect. Sometimes he intimidates me. But I like to talk to him, to be with him, and I’m only human, aren’t I? Don’t we all occasionally fall victim to our desires?
An hour later, when we’re almost back at the hotel, we’ve been sat in dead silence. I thought maybe, in his case, it was because he was blissed out. In my case it’s because I’m conflicted and listening to the radio, but then Tommy suddenly turns it off. I’m slightly affronted, briefly distracted from driving to look at him inquisitively.
“Michael,” he says. I hum to acknowledge that I heard him saying that and then he continues talking. “What am I to you?”
Oh no. The very question I hoped would never come up. Why do people always want to name things? Why isn’t it enough to just be happy, together? To care about each other and hold each other and talk to each other and read each other’s poetry recommendations? I don’t want to name this.
“What do you mean, Tommy? You know I care about you an awful lot,” I say. I’m going to have to dodge this somehow. I know he’s going to try and dodge my dodging. I’ve been through this sort of thing before, when people want me to be specific about things and I just want to leave it to be what it is. Once we name it, expectations will be attached to it. I don’t want that, I want to be free. I don’t see myself with Tommy in five years. Or even in one year. Really, once the tour ends, I’ll be done.
“Michael,” Tommy says, growling slightly in frustration. I furrow my brows, irritated with his unnecessary anger. Why does he have to be like that? Why is he always so aggressive? Can’t he just control his feelings for once in his life? “I just- you’re so difficult. You’re so fucking difficult. Am I your boyfriend or not? Are you involved with other people or not?”
“I’m not involved with other people right now, no,” I say. I do what I want. And I don’t want a boyfriend or a commitment, I don’t want any responsibilities to anybody, especially not Tommy. And I don’t want a boyfriend. My mother would kill me. Or she’d let Joseph kill me.
“Are you my boyfriend?”
“Why do we have to name it?”
“For fuck’s sake,” Tommy says, pretty accurately summing up how I feel about this conversation, too, but I don’t go around swearing and being rude about it. “Is there something wrong with the fact that I want some confirmation of your feelings? Sometimes I feel like I’m just something you use so you’re not lonely or bored during this tour.”
“That’s not it,” I say. I don’t know what it is or why I’m doing this, now that we’re talking about it, and it’s making me think that I should stop doing this, effective immediately. I park outside the hotel, biting my lip. “We need to clean this seat.”
“Michael. I love you,” Tommy says. Oh. I smile as best I can, but I know that it looks halting and hesitant. “Do you love me?”
I try and think of a good answer. “I love all the people of the world. So of course I love you.”
Tommy stares at me as though I’ve just clucked like a chicken, then scoffs, looking outside. For a second, I tense up, because he looks like he might be about to kick off. But he doesn’t. He just says, “go fuck yourself, Michael” and gets out the car, storming away. I’m angry at myself for thinking so little of him, of course he wouldn’t hurt me. Why would I think that? Because of Joseph? It isn’t fair of me to put that on Tommy. I want to apologise, but of course he’s gone. He wouldn’t care for my apology anyway. All he wants is for me to say I’m in love with him, and I won't. I'm not.