Chapter 5: Anticipation
The shame from that night with Lucas congealed into a cold, hard lump in Matthew’s chest. It colored everything. At the embassy, he avoided the marine post, taking the long way around to the cafeteria. He ignored three texts from Lucas over two days—vague, cheerful messages about a new café, a funny meme, the weather. Each notification was a tiny, glowing accusation. He knew he was being cruel. The alternative, facing what he’d done, felt impossible.
His phone, however, held another thread of communication, one that burned with a different, anticipatory heat.
It had started simply. A message from Dmitri on Thursday afternoon, a day after the alley.
Dmitri: The Dutchman complained again today. About the cheese. I now have a detailed fantasy involving a windmill and industrial lubricant.
A startled laugh escaped Matthew. He typed back, leaning against his kitchen counter.
Matthew: I find your specificity disturbing. My fisheries negotiator is now pictured covered in eels. Thank you for that.
Dmitri: Eels are an underutilized tool of diplomacy. We should collaborate on a paper.
The exchange was a lifeline. It was clever, adult, and deliciously devoid of emotional baggage. It was also, unmistakably, a slow, deliberate seduction. The texts became a daily ritual. They traded barbs about their colleagues, obscure historical facts, descriptions of their respective neighborhoods. Dmitri’s messages were never long, but they were potent, laced with a dark wit and a subtle, mounting pressure.
Dmitri: I saw a man on the Ha’penny Bridge today crying into his phone. He was wearing magnificent shoes. Tragedy and style are not mutually exclusive. It reminded me of you.
Matthew: The tragedy or the style?
Dmitri: The fascinating contradiction. The excellent shoes.
On Saturday, the tone shifted.
Dmitri: This evening is interminable. A function at the Russian ambassador’s residence. I am surrounded by men who smell of caviar and regret.
Matthew: Sounds dreadful. My excitement is a leftover curry and reading trade reports.
Dmitri: Your evening sounds superior. I am picturing you. In your book-lined room. The worn sweater you wore to the pub. What are you reading to escape the reports?
Matthew’s breath hitched. He was, in fact, wearing that sweater.
Matthew: Nothing that would impress you. A pulpy thriller.
Dmitri: I am not interested in impressing you with literary critique. I am interested in the way your fingers would turn the pages. The concentration on your face. The quiet of your flat. It seems a world away from this noisy hell.
The text seemed to pulse in his hand. This was no longer subtext.
Matthew: It is quiet. Sometimes too quiet.
A pause. Then:
Dmitri: Silence is a space to be filled. With thought. With sound. With other things.
Matthew’s skin felt too tight. He typed, deleted, typed again.
Matthew: What kind of other things?
The response was immediate.
Dmitri: Use your imagination, Matthew. I am. Extensively.
A bolt of pure, unadulterated desire shot through him, so sharp it was almost painful. He slid down the counter to sit on the floor, the cool tiles against his palms. He stared at the words.
They texted late into the night, the conversation weaving from the geopolitical to the explicitly, blindingly carnal. Dmitri’s words were not crude; they were precise, vivid, and relentlessly focused on Matthew’s body, his reactions, the sounds he might make. It was a psychological undressing, more intimate than the alley had been. Matthew was sweating, painfully hard, completely captive to the rhythm Dmitri set with his words. When Dmitri finally signed off with a simple Until Wednesday, Matthew was left trembling and unsatisfied, the phantom of Dmitri’s command echoing in the silent flat.
The anticipation was a live wire in his system. It made him jittery, distracted.
Sean, perceptive as ever, became his accidental grounding wire. That Monday, he appeared at Matthew’s desk. “Right. You’re coming to the gym with me.”
“I absolutely am not,” Matthew said, not looking up from a cable on renewable subsidies.
“You’re vibrating like a tuning fork. You need to sweat out whatever demon you’re hosting. Or someone else’s sweat. I’m not judging.” Sean plucked the cable from his hands. “It’s a public holiday in the U.S. Embassy. You have no excuse. We’re going.”
The gym was a local, no-frills place smelling of bleach and iron. Sean, in loose shorts and a faded tee, moved with a languid grace on the free weights, his wiry frame deceptively strong. Matthew, on a treadmill, found his gaze drifting. The sweat darkening the hair on Sean’s arms, the concentrated line of his mouth as he lifted, the way his shirt rode up to reveal a trail of dark hair leading down from his navel.
“Eyes on the prize, mate,” Sean called without looking, a smirk playing on his lips as he lowered a barbell. “The prize being not falling off that thing and suing the embassy.”
They went for a pint afterwards at a quiet spot off Thomas Street. Sean talked easily about his vast, chaotic family in Cork, his mother’s latest crusade against a neighbor’s leylandii hedge. Matthew listened, soothed by the normalcy.
“You’re good at this,” Matthew said eventually, tracing a pattern in the condensation on his glass.
“At drinking? A proud national tradition.”
“No. At… being a friend. It’s not messed up. It’s straightforward.”
Sean’s playful expression softened. He studied Matthew for a long moment. “Everything else is, though, isn’t it? Messed up.”
Matthew didn’t deny it. He looked out the window at the gathering dusk.
“The Ukrainian,” Sean stated quietly. It wasn’t a question.
Matthew’s silence was confirmation enough.
“And the Marine?”
“I’m… handling it.”
Sean snorted. “You’re about as good at ‘handling it’ as my mam is at subtlety. Which is to say, catastrophically.” He took a long pull of his stout. “Look, I’m not your conscience. And he’s a gorgeous bastard, I’ll give him that. Just remember what I said. He’s a sharp thing. You’ll bleed if you’re not careful.”
“I’m not looking for careful.”
“Aye,” Sean said, his eyes holding Matthew’s. The usual glint of humor was gone, replaced by something more searching. “That’s what worries me.”
The air between them thickened. It wasn’t the electric charge of Dmitri, or the warm, guilty pull of Lucas. This was slower, deeper—a recognition of shared loneliness, a gravitational pull that had been building since Matthew’s first day. Sean’s foot brushed against his under the small table. Neither of them moved it away.
“Sean, I…” Matthew began, the confusion welling up.
Sean shook his head, a small, resigned smile returning. “Don’t. You’ve enough plate-spinning to do. I’m just your friendly local disaster consultant. No fee required.” He knocked his glass against Matthew’s. “But the consultancy includes mandatory pints. So drink up.”
Wednesday arrived with a low, grey sky that promised rain. The entire day felt like the held breath before a plunge. Matthew cleaned his apartment with a frantic, unnecessary intensity, stacking books, vacuuming, changing the sheets. He showered at five, his skin hyper-sensitive. He dressed with deliberate care in dark jeans and a soft, charcoal pullover.
At seven, his phone buzzed.
Lucas: Hey. I’m off early. Could I come by? I feel like we need to talk.
The timing was abysmal. Dmitri was due at eight. Matthew’s stomach twisted. He couldn’t face Lucas. Not now, with the ghost of Dmitri’s texts already in the room. But the plea in the message—I feel like we need to talk—was a direct hit to his crumbling conscience.
He paced. He typed three different responses and deleted them. The coward’s path was clear.
Matthew: Can’t tonight. Swamped with work. Sorry.
He hit send before he could think better of it. The guilt was instant and nauseating. He saw the three dots appear, then disappear. No response. The silence felt heavier than any reply.
The silence felt heavier than any reply. He stared at the phone in his hand, its blank screen a judgment. He needed to move, to do something with this rattling energy. The wine. He stood before his small rack, paralysis setting in. A bold red felt too aggressive, a crisp white too insubstantial. He selected a Pinot Noir, then immediately put it back, his palms damp. This was absurd. He was a grown man, not a teenager prepping for a prom date. The thought didn’t calm him.
Music was next. He scrolled through playlists, rejecting anything too lyrical, too upbeat, too somber. He finally chose a minimalist electronic album, all deep, throbbing basslines and sparse, echoing melodies. It seemed to match the cavernous anxiety in his chest. He adjusted the volume three times, then lit a single candle on the coffee table, its flicker mocking his attempt at casual ambiance.
He was flustered, deeply and genuinely flustered, in a way he hadn’t been since his first dates with Patrick a lifetime ago. This wasn’t Lucas’s eager warmth or Sean’s comfortable pull. This was the vertigo of stepping onto unknown ground, knowing it might give way beneath him. He checked his reflection in the dark window, seeing only a silhouette of a man waiting to be unmade.
The sharp buzz of the intercom startled him. His heart slammed against his ribs. He pressed the button, his voice strangling slightly. “Come up.”
Time compressed into the seconds it took for the footsteps to climb the stairs. He opened the door before Dmitri could knock.
Dmitri stood there, the hallway’s weak light carving the sharp planes of his face. He wore a dark wool coat, unbuttoned, over a simple black crewneck sweater and trousers. He wasn’t smiling. He looked devastatingly handsome, an impression of controlled severity and latent heat. “Matthew,” he said, the single word a full sentence.
“Come in.” Matthew stepped back, the space suddenly too small, too warm.
Dmitri entered, his gaze sweeping the room—the books, the candle, the waiting glasses—before landing back on Matthew. He shrugged off his coat, and Matthew took it, fingers brushing cool wool. The simple domesticity of hanging it up felt profoundly intimate.
“Wine?” Matthew’s voice was too bright.
“Please.”
Matthew poured, hand steadier than he felt. They stood near the window, the city lights smeared gold through the rain-beaded glass.
“Your colleague? The one with the eels?” Dmitri asked, accepting the glass.
“Transferred his ire to salmon quotas. A marginally less slippery subject.” Matthew took a too-large swallow.
“Progress, of a sort.” Dmitri’s eyes didn’t leave Matthew’s face. “You’ve been thinking.”
“About salmon?”
“About silence. And what fills it.”
The small talk evaporated. The thrumming music filled the air between them, a sonic heartbeat. Matthew had no clever retort. He simply nodded, his throat tight.
Dmitri set his glass down, untouched. He closed the distance in one fluid step. One hand came up to cradle the side of Matthew’s face, thumb stroking his jawline. The touch was electric, deliberate. No hesitation, no question. He kissed him.
It wasn’t gentle. It was a possession. Dmitri’s mouth was hot and demanding, his tongue sweeping in with a claiming authority that bypassed thought and went straight to Matthew’s spine. Matthew gasped into it, his own glass tipping, wine sloshing as he fumbled to set it down. He grabbed Dmitri’s shoulders, the wool soft under his desperate grip. The kiss was all the texts made real—the intelligence, the command, the raw, focused hunger. Matthew was dissolving into it.
When they broke for air, Dmitri’s breath was hot on his lips. “The shirt. Off.”
Matthew’s fingers, clumsy with need, went to the buttons of Dmitri’s sweater. He pushed the soft fabric off his shoulders, then attacked the crisp white shirt beneath. Each button released was a small victory. He peeled the shirt back, revealing Dmitri’s torso.
It was exactly as he’d imagined in his most secret thoughts: fit and lean, the muscles defined but not gym-carved, the skin pale and smooth over his ribs and stomach. A light, golden dusting of hair spread across his chest, trailing down in a fine line. Matthew let out a shaky breath. “Fuck. You’re…”
“Yours to look at. For now.” Dmitri’s voice was a low gravel. In turn, he gripped the hem of Matthew’s pullover and tugged it up and off in one swift motion. The cool air hit Matthew’s skin, followed immediately by the sear of Dmitri’s palms skating up his sides. The contrast made him shiver violently.
They didn’t speak. They moved toward the bedroom, a clumsy, connected dance of fumbling hands and crashing mouths. Belts clinked, jeans and trousers were shoved down and kicked away. Dmitri pushed Matthew back onto the bed, coming down over him, his weight a perfect, anchoring pressure. His mouth traveled from Matthew’s lips to his throat, biting a line down to his collarbone. Matthew arched, his cock straining against the rough friction of his briefs, then against Dmitri’s.
“Tell me what you want.” Dmitri’s command was murmured against his sternum.
“You. Just fuck me. Please.”
“How?”
“Hard. I don’t want gentle.”
Dmitri’s eyes flashed with dark approval. He reached over to the nightstand, finding the lube Matthew had left there in a silent, hopeful act. The click of the cap was obscenely loud. He slicked his fingers, his gaze locked on Matthew’s as he pushed one inside him without preamble.
Matthew cried out, back bowing off the bed. It was a stretch, a burning fullness he’d craved without letting himself know. Dmitri worked him open with a ruthless, efficient rhythm, adding a second finger almost immediately, scissoring and stretching him. “You take it so well,” Dmitri muttered, curling his fingers, searching.
“There, oh god, right there—” Matthew choked as Dmitri found his prostate, a bolt of blinding pleasure shooting through him. His hips jerked, fucking himself on Dmitri’s hand. “Now. Do it now.”
Dmitri withdrew, tearing open a condom with his teeth. He sheathed himself, poured more lube into his palm, and slicked his cock, the head leaking and flushed. He positioned himself, the blunt pressure an imminent promise. He didn’t ask again.
He pushed in.
The invasion was brutal, exquisite, a splitting fullness that stole the air from Matthew’s lungs. Dmitri didn’t stop, didn’t pause for him to adjust. He just sank in, in, in, until his hips were flush against Matthew’s ass, buried to the hilt. A raw, punched-out sound was torn from Matthew’s throat.
“Yes,” Dmitri hissed, his composure fracturing. He began to move.
It was a punishing, driving rhythm. Each thrust slammed the breath from Matthew’s body, each withdrawal a devastating loss. Dmitri fucked him with a focused intensity, one hand braced by Matthew’s head, the other gripping his hip hard enough to bruise. The slap of skin, the ragged gasps, the creak of the bed—the room was full of the filthy, beautiful noise of it.
“You feel that?” Dmitri grunted, his pace never faltering. “You feel how deep I am in you?”
“Yes, fuck, yes!”
“This is what you needed. This claiming. This is all you are right now.” He angled his hips, driving directly into Matthew’s prostate with every piston stroke.
Pleasure, white-hot and relentless, coiled tighter and tighter at the base of Matthew’s spine. He was babbling, a stream of filth and praise and begging. “Don’t stop, please, god, right there, you’re fucking destroying me—” He reached for his own cock, aching and leaking, but Dmitri knocked his hand away.
“No. You come from this. From my cock.” He leaned down, capturing Matthew’s mouth in a savage kiss, swallowing his cries as he hammered into him, faster, deeper, more.
It was too much. It was everything. The coil snapped.
Matthew’s orgasm ripped through him with a violence that was almost terrifying. He shouted, a raw, broken sound against Dmitri’s mouth as his body seized, clenching around the cock pistoning inside him. Waves of pleasure, sharper and more profound than anything he’d felt in years—not since the early, desperate days with Patrick—crashed over him, leaving him blind and shuddering.
Dmitri’s rhythm stuttered, his own control shattering. With a guttural groan, he drove in one last, final time, hips jerking as he found his release deep inside the condom. He collapsed atop Matthew, his weight a solid, sweating reality.
For long minutes, there was only the sound of their ragged breathing. Dmitri eventually rolled off, disposing of the condom. Matthew lay utterly spent, boneless, every nerve alight and then extinguished. He felt liquefied, unmade. He could hardly move. The ghost of Dmitri’s thrusts still echoed in his muscles.
Dmitri’s hand found his on the sheets, lacing their fingers together in a shock of tenderness amidst the wreckage. They didn’t speak. The rain pattered softly against the window, and the city hummed its distant tune below, indifferent to the small, human cataclysm in the room above.
The rain pattered softly against the window, and the city hummed its distant tune below, indifferent to the small, human cataclysm in the room above. Matthew’s breathing finally slowed, the frantic drumbeat in his chest subsiding into a deep, post-climax ache. He felt Dmitri shift, the warmth of his body leaving the bed.
Matthew pushed himself up on unsteady elbows. “Where are you going?”
“To clean up.” Dmitri’s voice was rough, but his touch was not as he briefly squeezed Matthew’s ankle before walking, naked and unconcerned, to the adjoining bathroom. Matthew watched the play of muscles in his back, the definitive shape of him. He heard the water run.
He forced himself up, his limbs heavy. He fetched a damp flannel from the basin, the water cool. He returned to the bed, where Dmitri had settled back against the headboard. Gently, Matthew cleaned the sweat from Dmitri’s chest and stomach, the damp hair curling under the cloth. Dmitri watched him, his expression unreadable. Matthew then tended to himself, wiping the sticky evidence of their coupling from his own skin before tossing the cloth toward the hamper.
He returned to bed, the sheets cool where he slid in. Dmitri pulled him close without a word, Matthew’s head coming to rest on his shoulder. The scent of sex and Dmitri’s clean, sharp sweat filled his senses. Matthew traced idle, swirling patterns on Dmitri’s chest, over the smooth planes and the coarse hair.
“That was…” Matthew began, his voice scratchy.
“Intense,” Dmitri finished, the word a solid verdict.
“Yeah. Satisfying doesn’t even cover it. It felt… necessary.”
Dmitri’s hand stroked through Matthew’s hair, the touch surprisingly tender. “It was good. You are very responsive.” He paused, his fingers stilling. “I should say something clear, though. I am not a man for romance. Picnics, hand-holding, meeting friends. That is not what I am looking for.”
Matthew’s tracing finger stopped. He absorbed the words, feeling their truth land with a dull thud in his gut. “I’m no good at relationships anyway,” he said, the confession floating up in the dark. “I’m not even sure what I want anymore. Since Patrick… everything just feels like a reaction, not a choice.”
Dmitri turned his head, his lips brushing Matthew’s forehead. “Then perhaps this is simple. We can both be whatever the other needs for now. A release. An understanding. No promises, no future tense.”
“For now,” Matthew echoed, the term both a relief and a pit.
Dmitri pulled him closer, his body a solid wall of heat, and tilted Matthew’s face up to kiss him. It was different now—softer, exploratory, but no less deep. They kissed for a long while, a slow, languid exchange that felt like a mapping of territories already conquered. It was Matthew who eventually sighed, sinking deeper into the pillow of Dmitri’s shoulder, hoping the moment would stretch into the night.
Dmitri broke the silence. “I should get going.”
A sharp spike of disappointment, childish and acute, pierced Matthew’s haze. He hadn’t planned to ask him to stay, but he’d hoped, foolishly, that the option would be offered. “Right. Of course.”
They disentangled. The mood shifted, becoming practical, slightly stiff. They dressed in silence, the earlier intimacy receding with each article of clothing. Dmitri buttoned his shirt with the same efficient precision he did everything. Matthew pulled on his discarded jeans, feeling absurdly vulnerable.
At the door, Dmitri turned. He cupped Matthew’s face, his thumb smoothing over his cheekbone. “We will see each other again. Very soon.” It was a statement, not a question.
“I’d like that,” Matthew said, and meant it.
Dmitri kissed him once more, a firm, possessive stamp. Then he opened the apartment door, stepping out into the hall’s fluorescent glow. Matthew leaned in the doorway, watching him.
Just as Dmitri leaned in for a final, quick kiss, the door to apartment 3B opened directly across the narrow hall.
Patrick stood there, dressed in sweatpants and a t-shirt, clearly waiting for a food delivery from downstairs. He froze, a bag of trash in his hand, his eyes widening at the sight of Matthew in his disheveled jeans, chest bare, being kissed by a stunning, sharp-featured man.
Dmitri laughed, a low, unfazed sound. He gave Matthew a final, gleaming look, nodded almost imperceptibly at Patrick, and turned, his footsteps echoing confidently down the stairwell into the night.
The silence in the hall was thick enough to choke on. Patrick slowly set his trash bag down by his door. He ran a hand through his dark curls, a familiar, awkward gesture.
“Making a lot of new friends in Dublin, I see,” Patrick said, his tone striving for lightness but landing somewhere near strained.
Matthew mustered a weak smirk, crossing his arms over his chest. “Trying to keep up with the local social calendar. It’s demanding.”
Patrick gave a half-smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Looks it.” The delivery courier’s footsteps clattered on the stairs below, breaking the spell. “Night, Matt.”
“Night, Patrick.”
Matthew slipped back inside, shutting the door and leaning heavily against it. The adrenaline was gone, leaving a cavernous emptiness. His mind replayed the passionate encounter with Dmitri—the commanding touch, the obliterating pleasure. He was intensely drawn to him, to the raw freedom of it. But Dmitri’s warning echoed. No romance. It would probably never be more than sex. A series of intense, disconnected nights.
He walked to the coffee table, picking up his phone. The screen glowed with a notification.
Lucas: It’s okay. I get it. Take care of yourself.
The guilt returned, a sick, familiar wave. Here was someone who clearly wanted more from him, who offered a simplicity of affection Matthew felt utterly unequipped to handle. He was failing Lucas just as he’d failed to make it work with Patrick years ago.
He looked toward the wall that separated his flat from Patrick’s. He could picture them inside: Mike, kind and solid, Patrick laughing at something on the telly. The life he had once, for a brief, blinding six weeks, pictured himself sharing with Patrick. A life of postings and shared jokes and a home. The ghost of it haunted the hollow space in his chest.
He went to bed alone. The sheets still carried the scent of Dmitri, of sex. He had been having more sex than he’d had in years, a chaotic whirl of it. Yet as he lay in the dark, the city’s murmur feeling miles away, a nagging hollow feeling carved itself out beneath his ribs. It was a void no physical touch, no matter how expert or fierce, seemed able to fill.