1. Sebastián
Charlie's slides his hands down my chest and into my boxers. He holds me and I go hard in his grip. His eyes shift from my groin to my eyes, where he sees the elation, the feeling of doing something after dreaming about it for so long. He grins at me and leans forward to whisper in my ear.
"Are you nervous Sebastián?" he says. I can feel his warm breath in my ear tickling me. He wraps one arm around me while the other stays in my pants. All of my senses have gone into overdrive, I can feel and see him in ways I've never done before, I can feel and hear his heartbeat thudding against his chest, I can taste the sweet and sour of his damp skin as I rest my lips on his neck. I don't bother answering his question because he knows I must be nervous by the beating drum that seems to have taken the place of my heart. I can barely breathe. All of the fantasising over the last three years had finally lead to something. It wasn't just wishful thinking anymore; it was a reality. Charlie was gay just as I hoped and more importantly he was gay for me. The weight of this kept crashing down on me and took my breath away.
Thinking about what we were about to do felt so wrong, but at the same time, just so right. It felt like the universe had wanted it to be this way. Me and Charlie in bed together, our bodies overlapping so much that it looked like we were one person. Him looking at me with such passion and love that it felt like he had been dreaming of this moment just as much as I had.
I lift my hand up from his nipple and place it on his cheek. I don't want to ruin this moment but I have to know.
"Are you sure?" I look him straight in the eye when I say this and make sure he understands exactly what I mean by gesturing at the condom packet on his bedside table and the bottle of cherry lube next to it. They look so small on the table, crammed in next to dozens of water bottles with varying levels of water in. Charlie was too unorganised to use just one glass for water like I did, he just used different bottles that he had at the time and filled them up before he went to bed and not bothering to clear away the bottles in the mornings.
"Besides," he said to me one time. "When I'm crying at 2am I get dehydrated from water loss and I need more water, so I use bottles that can fit more in."
He opens his mouth instantly when he hears my question and I see him form the words yes, but he closes his mouth before any sound escapes. He shuts his eyes and takes a deep breath. He turns his head to look at the table beside him and then turns to look down at me. I can see exactly what is going through his mind right now. I see the face of conservative and religious Michael Robertson, Charlie's father, and can see him mouthing the words 'homosexuality is a sin.' I know that inside Charlie's head right now, it's a full on nuclear war between the angel and the devil. I can see him fighting away all of the feelings of disgust and disappointment that he has been brought up to feel about being gay. Seeing him doing this scares me because for a second I'm sure he's going to say no and throw me out of his house for bringing evil into it. I slowly clench the hand that's pressed into his cheek into a fist. I'm so scared.
But then he opens his eyes and blinks a few times and I can tell he's made a decision. He kisses me gently on the tip of my nose. "Yes Sebastián. I'm ready." He turns away from me and reaches for the bedside table. I can hear the sound of thin aluminium tearing. Somehow all the fear seems to leave me and suddenly I'm not scared anymore. Maybe all the fear before this was just the doubt that we would ever have sex. My breathing slows and slowly the drum in my chest metamorphosises into a heart. I'm ready. Charlie turns back to face me again and I take the latex out of his hand and reach down his naked body to roll the condom on his penis. He sighs in pleasure as I run my hands all the way along his shaft. He leans in and kisses me gently again, this time on my mouth.
"Sebastián," he pauses and frowns slightly as if he is disbelieving about what he going to say. "Sebastián," he says again. "I love-"
I wake up. I always wake up at this point. I've had this same dream for a year now. The beginning of the dreams can vary but the dreams always end up with me and Charlie, in his bed, about to have sex. We always get so close to fucking. Damn, why do I never get to see that part? It's something I've spent thinking about every single day for the last three years, but my night dreams always are so much more vivid than day dreams. It would be nice to see that part. It would also nice to see what he says to me at the end. The dreams always, always, always end with him saying my name twice, then saying "I love-". Does he say 'I love you.'? That would make sense in the situation, but then how would I know?
Then I always wake up. Of course, I've tried making up my ending to the dream myself, but it's like trying to reinvent another ending to a movie you watched. It just doesn't work. Even though my dreams are obviously just part of my imagination, it feels different when I'm sleeping because I have no control over the scene, making it more real when it happens.
I sit up in bed panting hard and shivering. My bed is drenched with icy sweat. It was hot when I went to bed so I left my window open. Now, even though I'm sweating, I'm freezing. I reach over and shut the window next to my bed. I sit still on my bed as my head and body slowly go back to reality. My body gets literally transported into the dream sometimes and I know without even looking at my boxers that I've come. From both ends. I suddenly feel gross and dirty, the way I do after I finish watching porn. I need to clean myself now. I stand up slowly from the bed and throw my oversized hoodie over my head. It stops me shivering a little bit which is good I guess. I realise that I've thought of the hoodie as my own hoodie when in actual fact it's one of Charlie's. He's here so much a section of my wardrobe is practically dedicated to his clothes. He doesn't know that I put this hoodie on in the middle of the night when going to the bathroom to clean myself up after a very messy wet dream featuring him. I try and imagine the look on his face if he knew this and I shudder. He would be beyond horrified.
I tiptoe out of the room thanking god that my little brother Manny is at his friends house tonight. To think I would have had that dream 2 metres away from him and he slept in his bed in a room we shared is just mortifying. Although when he is at home the dreams I have are luckily a bit more demure. Manny goes to stay at his best friends Maria's house every Wednesday night because the two of them do drama rehearsals together, and Mrs Willis the drama teacher also happened to be Maria's mum, so Manny ended up going back to Maria's house every Wednesday and it became a thing. Unfortunately for me though, my body seemed to know when it was a Wednesday which meant that the dreams were always worse and more messy.
When I get to the bathroom, I grab my flannel from the side and run the water until it's warm. I strip naked and wash my body as best I can with the flannel and a bar of soap. Once I'm clean I quickly dry myself with a towel and pee. As I'm cleaning my teeth I spit and my saliva has slivers of crimson in it. I gently run my tongue along the inside of mouth. I wince when my tongue runs over flesh on my left gum. This happens sometimes. I move around so much in my sleep that I can end up biting my the inside of my mouth. I quickly wash the spit away, shove my hoodie on and carry my dirty boxers to the wash basket. Trying to shove dirty pants to the bottom is so much harder now that manny is 13 and doing his business. I manage to find place in the pile that's not too near the bottom and not too near the top that it would be something that mama would notice.
As I'm tiptoeing back to my room, I try to block out some of the scenes of my dream that keep magically reappearing in my mind. The one that I can't shake is the ending. I just want to hear Charlie say that he loves me. But I know that in reality this isn't going to happen. I think of all the countless times he talks about girls. He has a new crush on a girl every week. Which is weird because he never actually dates them. So many girls want him but he's always turned them down. Like me, he's been single for his entire life.
He's been talking about them a lot less recently, but that's probably down to the fact that we have our A level mock exams in 3 weeks time. Most year 12s are unbothered about the mock exams because technically they count for nothing, but Charlie has taken them seriously. He's been studying every day after school. I don't actually think he does care as much as he lets on, but the pressure from his parents to get the best grades possible meant that he had to study.
Charlie has been my best friend for 10 years. We've been inseparable since the first time we met. Charlie's parents look down on my family for being poor but this has only seemed to make us want to be friends even more. Charlie's mum Rachel is the head of finance for a big London-based firm that produces car parts. His dad Michael does some work with the conservatives in the government. Even Charlie doesn't seem to know what is dad does.
Both parents come from very wealthy backgrounds and have grown up with many luxuries and opportunities me and Manny have never had. The Robertson couple are both away from home a lot and work long hours meaning they don't don't see Charlie and his brother Ken a lot. Even though he would never admit it, I know it upsets Charlie that he never sees them. I've seen the look of pain in his eyes whenever his mum says she has to go out of the country for the week. The way that his younger brother uses this as an opportunity to be out of the house as much as possible. Which means that the only person Charlie has is me. When he's lonely and feels abandoned by his family, that's when I go to his house and comfort my friend.
When I go over to his house and we're alone, I don't want to be Charlie and Seb the best friends, I want to be Charlie and Seb the lovers. But I know this can't happen. I know that if I ever show my feelings for him, I'll lose him for ever. At least if I live in silence now, I can still have him. As a friend.
I collapse wearily on to my bed and pray that I can sleep peacefully for the rest of the night without Charlie in my mind. I keep praying this even as I drift off and see my phone flashing beside my bed. A message from Charlie.
Sebastián, it reads. Come over. I need you.
