Chapter 5: Drowning in Pleasure
Nathaniel’s hands were under Jamie’s thighs, lifting him as if he weighed nothing. Water dripped from their bodies onto the pale stone patio, leaving dark splotches like shadows. Jamie wrapped his legs around Nathaniel’s waist, the movement instinctive, as he was carried through the sliding glass doors into the cool, dark townhouse.
The air conditioning raised goosebumps on his wet skin. They didn’t turn on any lights. The ambient glow from the pool and the distant streetlights outside the windows painted the spacious living room in shades of blue and gray. Nathaniel walked with sure steps, past sleek furniture, down a hallway. He shouldered open a door.
His bedroom was dark, dominated by a huge king-sized bed. The sheets were white, rumpled, glowing faintly in the dimness. He deposited Jamie in the center of it. The fabric was soft, cool against Jamie’s back. Nathaniel stood beside the bed, looking down at him, a broad silhouette cut from the night. The sheer size of him, the quiet confidence, made something tighten low in Jamie’s belly—a flutter of apprehension mixed with raw want.
Nathaniel climbed onto the bed, kneeling between Jamie’s legs. He leaned down, kissing him again, slower now, deeper. His hands smoothed over Jamie’s hips, his stomach, as if memorizing the terrain. “You good?” he murmured against Jamie’s mouth.
“Yeah,” Jamie breathed. “Just… it’s really big.”
Nathaniel chuckled, a warm sound. “I know. We’ll go slow.” He reached over to the nightstand, the drawer sliding open with a whisper. The sound of a foil packet tearing was loud in the quiet room. He sheathed himself, the process clinical compared to the heat of the moment.
He took his time. His mouth was everywhere—on Jamie’s neck, his collarbones, his nipples—until Jamie was squirming, gasping, the earlier apprehension dissolving into a liquid need. Nathaniel’s fingers, slick with lube from the same drawer, prepared him with a thorough, almost meditative patience. One, then two, stretching him carefully, scissoring, crooking until Jamie saw sparks behind his eyelids.
“Ready?” Nathaniel’s voice was husky.
Jamie nodded, wordless. He was more than ready. The hollowness was a silent scream, begging to be filled.
Nathaniel guided himself to Jamie’s entrance. The pressure was immense, a blunt, stretching demand that made Jamie suck in a sharp breath. He pushed Jamie’s thighs back, toward his chest, changing the angle. “Breathe out,” he instructed, his own voice tight with control.
Jamie exhaled, and Nathaniel pushed in with a slow, relentless gravity. It was a lot. It was everything. The stretch was breathtaking, a filling so complete it bordered on pain. Jamie bit his lip, his nails digging into Nathaniel’s forearms. He felt opened, split wide on the thickest thing he’d ever taken.
Nathaniel paused, fully seated, buried to the hilt. He was shaking with the effort of holding still. Sweat beaded on his forehead. “Okay?” he gritted out.
Jamie, his vision swimming, managed another nod. The initial shock was melting into a full, aching pressure that felt strangely… right. “Move,” he whispered.
Nathaniel began to withdraw, then slide back in, a slow, deep piston. Each stroke was a journey. Jamie could feel every inch, a devastating friction that rubbed directly against his core. He clutched at the sheets, his back arching.
“Want you to ride me,” Nathaniel said after a few minutes, his rhythm stuttering. He pulled out, leaving Jamie feeling gaping and empty. He lay back against the pillows, a mountain of muscle against the white cotton. He guided Jamie to turn around, to straddle him backwards. “This way you control it.”
Jamie kneeled over him, his back to Nathaniel’s chest. He reached behind himself, guiding Nathaniel back to his entrance. Sinking down onto him backwards was a different kind of revelation. He could see nothing but the dark room, the vague shape of his own trembling thighs, which made the sensation more intense, more internal. He had to work for it, lowering himself millimeter by agonizing millimeter, his body fighting to accommodate the girth.
When he was fully impaled, he paused, panting, his head dropped forward. He felt utterly claimed. Nathaniel’s hands settled on his hips, a light, steadying touch.
“Go on,” Nathaniel urged, his voice thick.
Jamie began to move. It was an awkward climb at first, then a smoother bounce. He set the pace, a rising and falling that made his thigh muscles burn with the effort. Each downward plunge drove the air from his lungs in a soft uh. He could hear the wet slap of skin, Nathaniel’s ragged breathing beneath him. The angle was perfect, brushing that lightning-rod spot inside him with every descent. Pleasure, sharp and bright, began to coil tightly in his gut, overriding the burn in his legs.
He rode harder, faster, driven by a need to obliterate himself in the feeling. Sweat slicked his back. His movements became less controlled, more frantic. The hollow space wasn’t just being filled; it was being battered, hammered into a new shape.
“Fuck, Jamie…” Nathaniel groaned, his hands tightening on Jamie’s hips, his own hips starting to meet Jamie’s bounces with upward drives of his own.
The shift in control was subtle, then absolute. Jamie’s thighs gave out, the muscles quivering into uselessness. He collapsed forward, catching himself on his hands, his ass still in the air, still speared. Nathaniel didn’t miss a beat. He took over.
He held Jamie’s hips pinned, and fucked up into him. This was different. This was not riding. This was being taken. The force was tremendous, each drive a direct, prostate-mashing impact that tore sounds from Jamie he didn’t recognize—high, broken, desperate. Nathaniel’s pace was brutal, efficient, the bedframe knocking a steady, urgent rhythm against the wall.
Jamie was reduced to sensation. The world narrowed to the pounding point of connection, the sweat-sticky sheets under his palms, the guttural sounds ripped from Nathaniel’s throat. The coil inside him snapped. His orgasm ripped through him like a seizure, violent and mindless, stripes of white painting the dark sheets beneath him. He cried out, a raw, unraveling sound.
The sensation of Jamie clamping down, pulsing tightly around him, sent Nathaniel over the edge. With three final, deep, punishing thrusts, he buried himself as far as he could and let go. Jamie felt the hot pulse through the latex, a phantom claim.
For a long minute, the only sounds were their shattered breathing and the faint hum of the AC. Nathaniel softened inside him, then slowly, carefully, pulled out. The aftermath was a cool, aching emptiness. Jamie rolled onto his side, boneless, spent in a way that felt total.
Nathaniel disappeared into the connected bathroom. Jamie heard water running, the flush of a toilet. He returned with a warm, damp washcloth, gentle as he cleaned Jamie up. The gesture was so unexpectedly tender it made Jamie’s throat constrict. Nathaniel disposed of the condom, then slid back into bed, pulling Jamie against him. His body was a furnace, solid and secure.
They lay in silence. Jamie listened to Nathaniel’s heartbeat slow under his ear. The hollow space was quiet, pacified by the physical cataclysm. For the first time in weeks, maybe months, his mind was still. No scrolling thoughts, no phantom itches. Just the weight of an arm around him, the smell of sex and clean skin.
“You’re amazing,” Nathaniel mumbled into his hair, already half-asleep.
Jamie didn’t answer. He closed his eyes, letting the warmth and the silence wrap around him. He drifted, not toward sleep, but into a rare, peaceful nothing.
A buzzing vibration sliced through the quiet. It was persistent, metallic. Jamie’s phone, buried in the pocket of his discarded jeans on the floor.
Nathaniel stirred. “You gonna get that?”
“No,” Jamie whispered, pressing closer. “It’s nothing.”
The buzzing stopped. Then, a moment later, it started again. A Grindr notification. Then another. And another. A rapid-fire sequence. A new message, then a new profile view, a new tap. The screen lit up the floor with a cold, blue glow.
The hollow space, so recently quiet, gave a faint, familiar twinge.
Nathaniel’s breathing evened out into sleep. Jamie lay still, staring at the stripe of light from the hallway under the door. The warmth of the body beside him felt suddenly smothering. The silence was too loud.
Slowly, carefully, he extricated himself from Nathaniel’s arm. The big man sighed but didn’t wake. Jamie slipped out of the bed, the cool air hitting his sweaty skin. He found his jeans, pulled the phone from the pocket.
The screen blinded him. Three new messages. A dozen new profile views. The grid waited, infinite, updated. New meat. New possibilities. A fresh, anonymous ‘hey’ glowed at the top of his screen.
He glanced back at the bed. Nathaniel slept peacefully, a beautiful, sculpted statue in the dim light. He’d been kind. He’d been more than Jamie could have asked for.
Jamie’s thumb hovered over the screen. He felt the ache in his body, a pleasant, full-body reminder of the pounding he’d taken. And beneath it, persistent as a heartbeat, the emptiness reasserted itself, wider and deeper than before, hungry again.
He deleted the new messages without reading them. He swiped the app closed.
He stood there for a full minute, naked in a stranger’s dark bedroom, the phone heavy in his hand.
Then, with a silence born of long practice, he opened the app again. The glow lit his face, pale and intent. He began to scroll.
He began to scroll. The glow of the screen painted his hollow expression in pale blue. A new profile, a torso, a grinning face in a bathroom mirror—it all blurred into a monotonous feed of want. The quiet of the room was suddenly oppressive, the sound of Nathaniel’s deep breathing like a condemnation of his own restlessness. He locked the phone, the screen going black, and placed it face down on the nightstand.
The action felt final, a small rebellion against the itch in his fingers. He turned instead to look at Nathaniel, a dark shape outlined by the faint light from the window. The solid reality of him, the kindness he’d shown, felt like a anchor in Jamie’s churning sea. He reached out, his hand finding the warm, hard plane of Nathaniel’s stomach under the sheet. He traced a line downward, his fingers slipping beneath the elastic of the boxer briefs Nathaniel had pulled on before sleep.
Nathaniel stirred with a soft groan, his body responding even in unconsciousness. Jamie’s hand closed around him, feeling the soft weight slowly swell to a familiar, daunting fullness as he stroked. Nathaniel’s eyes fluttered open. He looked down, a sleepy, confused smile spreading across his face. “Hey,” he rasped, his voice thick with sleep.
“Hey yourself,” Jamie whispered, increasing the pace of his strokes. He leaned in, his lips close to Nathaniel’s ear. “I’m ready for round two. But I want to feel you. Really feel you.” He paused, letting the implication hang. “No rubber this time.”
Nathaniel was fully awake now, his eyes searching Jamie’s in the dark. “You sure?” His hand came up to cup Jamie’s cheek, his thumb brushing the bone. “That’s a big ask, and a big risk.”
“I’m sure,” Jamie said, and he was. The hunger for that raw, unfiltered connection, to feel truly and completely filled, overrode the quiet voice of caution. He needed to blur the line between them until the hollow space had no room to breathe. “I need it. Please.”
Nathaniel watched him for another long second, then nodded, a slow, deliberate gesture. He rolled Jamie onto his back, his body a welcoming warmth. “Then you’ll get it.”
This time was different from the start. There was no foil packet, no clinical pause. Nathaniel slicked himself with the lube from the bedside drawer, then his fingers worked Jamie open again, but the knowledge of what was coming made every touch feel more significant. When Nathaniel pressed forward, the sensation was a shocking, silken heat. Jamie gasped, his nails biting into Nathaniel’s shoulders. It was more intimate, more vulnerable, a seamless joining that made his head spin.
They moved together for what felt like an hour, a sweat-slicked tangle of limbs in the center of the big bed. They switched positions with a wordless, fluid understanding. Jamie on his back, legs hooked over Nathaniel’s shoulders, watching his own stomach quiver with each thrust. Jamie on his hands and knees, head buried in the pillows as Nathaniel drove into him from behind, the slap of skin a relentless, grounding rhythm. Jamie on top, riding slowly, controlling the deep, stretching glide, his own cock bobbing heavily between them.
“Fuck, Nathaniel,” Jamie moaned, his body thrumming with a sustained, electric pleasure. He was perched on the edge again, that glorious precipice. “I’m close. I want to feel you bust inside me. I want all of it.”
Nathaniel, who was behind him again, his pace becoming frantic and uneven, gripped Jamie’s hips bruisingly tight. “You’ll feel it,” he promised, his voice strained. With a final, deep series of pounding drives that shoved Jamie up the bed, he stilled, buried to the hilt. A low groan tore from his chest, and Jamie felt it—the distinct, pulsing heat flooding into him, a visceral claim that made his own orgasm detonate.
He cried out, his body convulsing, stripes of white painting the rumpled sheets beneath him. He was dimly aware of Nathaniel softening, slipping out of him, a new, warm trickle following. Before he could even catch his breath, Nathaniel was moving again.
He guided Jamie onto his back, then slid down the bed. He took Jamie’s still-thick cock into his mouth without hesitation, his tongue swirling around the sensitive head. Jamie jerked, oversensitive, a broken sound escaping his lips. Nathaniel sucked firmly, cleaning him, swallowing every last drop. The act was so unexpectedly submissive, so generous after his own powerful climax, that it left Jamie reeling.
Nathaniel finally released him with a soft pop and crawled back up to collapse beside him, throwing a heavy arm across his chest. They lay in a mess of sweat and spend and tangled sheets, the only sound their ragged, slowing breaths. The room smelled sharply of sex and lube and them.
Jamie felt utterly, comprehensively used. The hollow space was not just filled; it was flooded, overflowed, momentarily silenced beneath a physical weight so total it felt like peace. He turned his head, his nose brushing Nathaniel’s shoulder. “That was…”
“Yeah,” Nathaniel breathed, already drifting back to sleep. “It was.”
Jamie closed his eyes. The phone on the nightstand remained dark, forgotten. For now, the scrolling could wait.
For now, the scrolling could wait. The heavy, sated warmth in his limbs was a foreign luxury. Jamie listened to Nathaniel’s breathing deepen into sleep, the steady rhythm a lullaby against the frantic beat of his own thoughts. He stared at the dark ceiling, tracing the phantom patterns of light from passing cars.
His body ached in a dozen delicious ways, a full-body testament to the night. The specific, internal ache was a anchor, tying him to this moment, this bed, this man. He shifted slightly, feeling the evidence of Nathaniel’s claim seep slowly onto the sheets. The intimacy of it, the raw biology, should have revolted him. Instead, it felt like a mark. A temporary tattoo on his soul.
Sleep, however, remained a distant country. The quiet of the room began to vibrate, the afterglow cooling into a restless energy. He carefully extracted himself from Nathaniel’s arm again, the big man mumbling but not waking. Jamie padded naked and silent across the cool hardwood floor, through the bedroom door.
The living room was bathed in the cool blue light of the aquarium-like pool. He stood before the sliding glass door, his reflection a ghostly silhouette against the turquoise glow. The hollow space inside him, so recently flooded, gave a dull, familiar throb. It was never enough. The filling always drained, leaving the cavity sharper, hungrier.
A soft snore echoed from the bedroom. The kindness there felt suddenly cloying, a weight. He needed friction, not comfort. He needed to be erased, not held.
The sleek, modular couch looked like a raft in the dimness. He sank into its soft, gray fabric, tucking his legs beneath him. The city’s nocturnal hum was a low, constant note. He reached for his phone on the glass coffee table, then stopped. His fingers curled back into his palm. He looked towards the bedroom door, left slightly ajar.
Nathaniel found him there twenty minutes later, silhouetted against the water-glow. “Couldn’t sleep?” Nathaniel’s voice was gravelly with sleep. He was naked, his frame a powerful cutout against the hallway light.
“Too wired,” Jamie said, not turning around.
Nathaniel walked over, his footsteps quiet. He placed a warm hand on Jamie’s bare shoulder. The touch was gentle, concerned. “You okay?”
The kindness was a splinter. Jamie twisted, looking up at him. He let his gaze travel slowly, appreciatively, down Nathaniel’s body. The dude was hung like a fucking horse, soft but still impressive. “I’d be better if you weren’t all the way over there.”
A slow smile spread across Nathaniel’s face. The concern evaporated, replaced by a easy, hungry understanding. He liked this version better too. “Yeah? What’s your plan, exactly?”
“You. Me. This couch.” Jamie reached out and wrapped his fingers around him, feeling him stir instantly to life. “Less talking.”
Nathaniel needed no further encouragement. He let Jamie guide him down, following him onto the deep cushions. The couch was wide, but it still felt like a precipice. Nathaniel knelt over him, bracing one arm on the backrest, his other hand guiding himself back to where he’d been just an hour before. Jamie’s body welcomed him with a wet, eager heat, still loose and slick from their last joining.
“Christ, you’re still open,” Nathaniel groaned, sinking in with one smooth, deep push.
Jamie gasped, his back arching off the cushions. It was easier this time, a familiar, stretching fullness. “Feels like I was made for it,” he breathed, hooking his legs around Nathaniel’s waist.
Nathaniel set a rhythm that was somehow both lazy and deep, a slow, grinding piston that made the whole couch frame creak in protest. Jamie closed his eyes, losing himself in the repetitive, crashing wave of sensation. Each thrust was a strike against the rising silence in his head.
The front door clicked open.
Neither of them heard it at first, lost in their own wet, rocking world. The footsteps in the entryway, however, were unmistakable. A keychain jingled. A backpack thumped to the floor.
Nathaniel froze, buried deep inside Jamie. His head snapped toward the hallway.
A figure appeared in the archway, backlit by the foyer light. He was silhouetted, but his build was clear—toned, of medium height, with the unmistakable posture of someone walking into their own home. He stopped dead.
“Nate?” The voice was young, male, slightly confused.
“Hey, Mateo,” Nathaniel said, his voice strained. He didn’t pull out. “You’re home early.”
Mateo took two steps forward, into the ambient blue light of the pool. The details resolved. He was Latino, probably around their age, with sharp cheekbones and a defined jaw shadowed with stubble. He wore a tight black t-shirt and joggers, which did nothing to hide a physique that was lean, athletic, and carefully maintained. His eyes, dark and wide, scanned the scene: his roommate, naked and sheathed inside a slender, spread-eagled stranger on their living room couch.
“Apparently,” Mateo said. His voice wasn’t angry. It was curious, assessing. A slow smile touched his lips. “Don’t let me interrupt.”
Jamie, pinned beneath Nathaniel, looked over Nathaniel’s shoulder. He met Mateo’s gaze. There was no shock there, only a bright, sharp interest. The hollow space inside Jamie gave a violent, convulsive leap. It screamed for more.
“You’re not interrupting,” Jamie said, his voice a hoarse challenge. He kept his eyes locked on Mateo’s. “You want to join?”
Nathaniel, still inside him, let out a sharp, surprised laugh. He looked from Jamie to his roommate, his brow furrowed. “Jamie, man—”
“I’m serious.” Jamie’s heart hammered against his ribs. This was it. This was the obliteration he needed. “There’s plenty of room.”
Mateo held Jamie’s stare for three long seconds. His gaze drifted down, taking in the junction of their bodies, the slick evidence glistening in the low light. He shrugged, the movement casual, as if he’d been offered a beer. “Fuck it. Why not?”
He didn’t leave the room. He stripped right there in the archway, pulling his shirt over his head, shoving his joggers and briefs down in one practiced motion. His body was a sculpture of taut muscle and smooth skin. He was already half-hard, his cock thick and curving upward. He walked toward them, completely unselfconscious.
Nathaniel, shaking his head but with a undeniable new urgency to his movements, began to thrust again. “You’re a bad influence,” he muttered to Jamie, but he was smiling.
Jamie reached a hand out toward Mateo, who was now standing beside the couch. “Come here.”
Mateo knelt on the cushions near Jamie’s head. The scent of him, clean sweat and cheap detergent, filled Jamie’s senses. Up close, he was even more beautiful, a dangerous, amused glint in his eye. Jamie’s mouth watered.
“You like that?” Mateo asked, nodding toward where Nathaniel was moving in and out of Jamie with a steady, wet rhythm.
“Love it,” Jamie gasped. “Need something in my mouth, too.”
Mateo didn’t need to be asked twice. He shuffled closer on his knees, his cock hovering just above Jamie’s lips. It was different from Nathaniel’s—shorter, thicker, a perfect curve. “Open up.”
Jamie did, his jaw going slack. Mateo fed himself in, not gently. The head bumped the back of his throat immediately. Jamie gagged, his eyes watering.
“None of that,” Mateo said, his voice dropping, losing its casual edge. He placed a hand on the side of Jamie’s head, not holding him down, but guiding him. “You asked for it. Take it.”
He pushed forward. Jamie relaxed his throat, a skill honed through countless encounters. He let Mateo slide deeper, the salty-bitter taste of him coating his tongue. He breathed through his nose, his world narrowing to the cock in his mouth and the one in his ass. Nathaniel’s thrusts pushed him forward, forcing Mateo deeper into his throat. Mateo’s thrusts pulled him back, onto Nathaniel.
It was a perfect, brutal symmetry. He was a conduit, a living toy stretched between two points of pleasure. Spit dripped down his chin. Tears tracked from the corners of his eyes. He was being used in the most literal sense, and the hollow space roared its approval.
“Switch,” Nathaniel grunted after a while, his pace becoming frantic.
They disentangled, a messy, wet scramble of limbs on the oversized couch. Jamie found himself on his hands and knees, his face pressed into the cushion. Nathaniel resumed his place behind him, driving back in with a groan of relief. Mateo knelt before him, feeding his cock back into Jamie’s eager, open mouth.
“Fuck his throat, Matty,” Nathaniel urged, his hands gripping Jamie’s hips hard. “Make him take it all.”
Mateo’s hands fisted in Jamie’s hair. He set a brutal, shallow pace, fucking his face with sharp, precise jabs that stole Jamie’s breath. Jamie’s gag reflex was a distant memory. He took it, his throat working, his noises reduced to wet, choked gurgles.
They switched again. Jamie on his back, legs hooked over Nathaniel’s shoulders while Mateo knelt over his face, fucking his mouth with deep, rolling thrusts. Then Jamie riding Nathaniel, his back to Nathaniel’s chest, as Mateo knelt on the couch and face-fucked him from the front. The positions blurred. The couch became a slippery, sweating battlefield.
The hour stretched, punctuated by grunts, slaps of skin, and the creaking protest of furniture. Jamie lost all sense of himself. He was a collection of senses: the burn in his thighs, the stretch of his ass, the ache in his jaw, the taste of pre-come and salt, the smell of three men’s sweat mingling into something primal.
Nathaniel was the first to break. “Gonna come,” he warned, his voice a ragged tear.
“In me,” Jamie demanded, his own voice shredded from use. “Do it.”
Nathaniel slammed home, his body locking, a guttural roar ripped from his chest. Jamie felt the pulsing heat flood him, a second deposit to join the first. The sensation, so raw and claiming, tipped Jamie over his own edge. He came with a silent, breathless shudder, stripes of white painting his own stomach.
Nathaniel collapsed to the side, spent. Mateo was not finished. He pulled Jamie off the couch, turning him roughly to face the back cushions. “My turn,” he said, his voice tight.
He entered Jamie from behind without preamble. Jamie was loose, wet, hypersensitive. Every thrust was a lightning bolt of overstimulation, a beautiful, agonizing fire. Mateo fucked him with a single-minded intensity, chasing his own end. His fingers dug into Jamie’s hips, sure to leave bruises.
“You’re gonna feel this too,” Mateo promised, his breath hot on Jamie’s neck.
He hammered into Jamie, his rhythm breaking apart. With a final, deep shudder, he pressed in as far as he could go and held. Jamie felt the new, hot rush join the others already inside him, a cascading overflow.
Mateo stayed there for a long moment, both of them breathing like exhausted animals. Then he pulled out. The sound was obscenely wet.
Jamie slid bonelessly to the floor, his back against the couch. The carpet was rough against his ravaged skin. He looked up. Nathaniel lay sprawled on the couch, eyes closed, a sheen of sweat on his chest. Mateo stood over him, looking down, wiping his cock with his discarded t-shirt.
The room stank of sex and sweat and salt. The pool light cast its eternal, impersonal blue glow over the wreckage of them.
Mateo tossed the shirt aside. “I’m hitting the shower,” he said, his voice returning to its normal, casual tone. He walked away, his footsteps fading down the hall.
Nathaniel cracked an eye open, looking at Jamie on the floor. A slow, satiated smile spread across his face. “You’re a fucking animal,” he said, admiration in his tired voice.
Jamie didn’t smile back. He felt the cool air on his skin, the multiple, trickling leaks from his body. The hollow space was quiet, drowned under a flood of physical sensation. But it was still there. He could feel its edges, waiting for the flood to recede.
He pulled himself up, using the couch for support. His legs trembled. “Bathroom?” he asked, his voice a dry rasp.
Nathaniel pointed a lazy thumb down the hall. “Second door.”
Jamie walked, each step a reminder. He closed the bathroom door behind him and flicked on the light. The face in the mirror was a stranger’s—swollen lips, bloodshot eyes, hair matted with sweat and spit. He looked used. Thoroughly.
He turned on the shower, steaming the mirror. He stepped under the hot needles, letting the water sluice the night from his skin. It ran in rivulets down his legs, carrying their combined essence down the drain. He scrubbed, but the feeling of being filled, of being fundamentally altered, remained.
He toweled off and walked back into the living room. Nathaniel was asleep on the couch, a blanket thrown haphazardly over his legs. The apartment was silent.
Jamie found his clothes, dressing slowly in the dark. He didn’t look back as he let himself out, closing the door with a soft click behind him.
The dawn air was cold. He walked toward the subway, the familiar ache between his legs a comforting ghost. He pulled out his phone. The screen blazed to life, a constellation of notifications waiting.
He opened the app. The grid loaded, fresh and endless. A new message popped up immediately. ‘Hey. You up?’
Jamie stared at the glowing screen, his reflection a pale ghost superimposed over the stranger’s torso. The hollow space yawned, wide and dark and hungry.
His thumb hovered. Then he began to type.