Chapter 12: Literary Deconstruction
The morning light through my shitty blinds was a merciless judge. It found the sequins from my gown glittering on the floor like discarded scales, the empty pancit plates on the coffee table, the unfamiliar weight of another body in my bed. Omar was still asleep, curled into a tight, warm ball facing away from me. His breathing was deep and even. In the stark, undramatic daylight, he looked younger. Softer. The carefully constructed confidence of the night before had melted away in sleep, leaving just a boy with long lashes and a mouth slightly agape.
A strange tenderness tightened my chest. I slipped out of bed carefully, the chill of the apartment raising goosebumps on my skin. I pulled on my sweats and padded to the kitchen. Rico was already there, sipping coffee at our small table, sketching something on a pad. He didn’t look up.
“Your boytoy snore?” he asked, his voice a morning croak.
“Like a tiny kitten.” I poured myself coffee, black and bitter. “He’s out cold.”
“Good. He worked hard last night.” A smirk played on Rico’s lips. “Both of you. The door has a new… polish.”
I flipped him off, but I was smiling. We sat in comfortable silence, the only sound the scratch of his pencil. This was our normal. The afterglow of a performance, the quiet dissection of the night. Only now, there was a third presence sleeping it off in my room.
An hour later, Omar emerged, dressed in yesterday’s rumpled clothes, his hair adorably mussed. He looked caught between a dream and a detention.
“Good morning, sleeping beauty,” Rico sang, not looking up from his sketch. “Coffee’s still warm. If David hasn’t drunk it all, the greedy bitch.”
Omar mumbled a greeting, his eyes finding mine. There was a shyness there, a ‘what now?’ that echoed in the quiet room. The high drama of the club and the frantic heat of my bedroom had faded, leaving the plain, unvarnished reality of a Wednesday morning. I knew that feeling. The crash after the fantasy.
“You hungry?” I asked him.
He shrugged. “A little.”
“Let me take you to breakfast. A proper one.” I needed to move, to get us out of the apartment that suddenly felt too small, too full of last night’s ghosts.
We went to a Filipino diner in Glendale, a place that smelled of garlic rice and longanisa. We ate silently for a while, the clatter of plates and the rapid-fire Tagalog of the waitstaff filling the space between us. Omar picked at his tapsilog, stealing glances at me.
“Last night…” he started, then stopped.
“Was last night,” I finished for him, dipping a piece of fried egg in vinegar. “It was fun. You were fun. Don’t overthink it, anak.”
He nodded, but I could see the gears turning. The engineer in him, trying to calculate the variables, to solve for ‘X’ where X was ‘what does this mean?’.
I reached across the table and put my hand over his. “Hey. It’s just food. And maybe more food later. Okay?”
That got a small, real smile from him. “Okay.”
We parted ways outside the diner, him heading back to Westwood in an Uber, me back to my car. The sun was high now, bleaching the color out of everything. The magic of the night was officially dead. But as I drove, a new plan began to form. Not a fantasy, not a performance. Something simpler. More direct.
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That evening, I stood outside Omar’s building in Westwood, holding a large, warm box. The scent of pepperoni and baked dough was a tangible warmth against the cool dusk. His apartment was in one of those sleek, modern complexes that looked like a millionaire’s shoebox—all concrete, glass, and cold, curated greenery.
He answered the door dressed in soft grey pajama bottoms and a UCLA sweatshirt. His face, which had been pinched with concentration, softened into a look of pure surprise. “David?”
“You said you were just gonna study,” I said, pushing past him into the pristine, minimalist space. It was exactly as I’d imagined: white walls, a huge window overlooking the campus, furniture that looked like it had never been sat on. It was a showroom, not a home. The only signs of life were a cluttered desk with a massive chemistry textbook and a single, surprisingly cozy-looking burgundy armchair next to a shelf full of graphic novels. A bong and a stack of Arabic books sat on a low table. “That’s depressing. You need carbs and company.”
I set the pizza box on his glass coffee table, the act feeling pleasantly vulgar in the sterile room. Omar watched me, a smile tugging at his lips. “You brought pizza.”
“And I brought myself. Better deal.” I flopped onto his stiff, expensive-looking sofa. “Sit. Eat.”
We ate straight from the box, our fingers getting greasy. He told me about an impossible problem set. I told him about Rico’s disaster with a bedazzler earlier that day. The formality of the morning melted away, replaced by the easy, chewing silence of two people sharing a meal. He relaxed into the sofa, his studied posture dissolving. This was what I wanted. Not the idol or the fantasy, but this: Omar in his pajamas, cheese stretching from his slice to his mouth, laughing at a stupid story.
When the box was empty, he leaned back, sighing contentedly. “I needed that.”
“I know.” I reached into the pocket of my leather jacket and pulled out a neatly rolled joint. “And now, for the digestif.”
His eyes widened slightly, but he didn’t protest. He fetched a small ceramic tray from his kitchen counter. I lit the joint, took a deep pull, and passed it to him. He took it with more confidence than I expected, holding the smoke in before exhaling a thin, expert plume.
“You’ve done this before,” I observed.
“It’s California,” he said, a sly glint in his eye. “It’s practically a required course.”
We passed it back and forth as the dusk deepened into night, the lights of the campus below winking on. The weed was good, softening the sharp edges of the room, of the day, of our own complicated histories. He sank deeper into the sofa, his body angled towards mine. The quiet was different now—thick, anticipatory. The academic chill of his apartment was being warmed by our shared breath, by the slow, spreading heat in my veins.
I watched him lick a spot of grease from his thumb, his lips glistening. The casual intimacy of it sent a sharp jolt straight to my groin. The noise of the world faded. There was just the hum of his floor lamp, the faint, skunky scent of the roach in the tray, and the heavy, lazy beat of my own heart.
I put the roach down. Held his gaze. My hands went to the button of my jeans.
The shush of the zipper going down was deafening in the quiet room.
He stared, his lips slightly parted, the high making his dark eyes pools of liquid obsidian. He didn’t move, just watched as I freed myself from my briefs. I lay back against the arm of his designer sofa, the leather cool through my shirt. I was already hard, thick and eager against my stomach in the low light.
A slow, wicked smile spread across my face. My voice, when it came, was a low, smokey rumble.
“So, Omar,” I murmured, my eyes locked on his. “You still have room for dessert?”
I let the question hang in the air, thick with intention.
“Would you like… a big Pinoy popsicle?”
A shudder ran through him. The shyness was gone, burned away by the weed and the dizzying familiarity of the last 24 hours. He moved then, not with hesitation, but with a stoned, deliberate slowness. He slid off the couch and onto the floor between my legs, his pajama-clad knees sinking into the plush rug.
He didn’t speak. He just leaned forward, his warm hands sliding up my thighs, and took me into his mouth.
It was different from the night before. Slower. Luxurious. He explored me with a lazy, stoned curiosity, his tongue painting slow, wet circles, his lips closing with a soft, savoring pressure. The pleasure was a deep, honeyed thrum, spreading from my core. My head fell back, a groan escaping my lips. I carded my fingers through his soft hair, not guiding, just feeling.
He worked on me until my hips began to lift involuntarily, until my breaths were short, sharp gasps. I tugged his hair gently, pulling him off. He looked up, his lips slick and swollen, confusion clouding his stoned gaze.
“Not like that,” I breathed, my voice tight. “Up here. Now.”
I pulled him up by his sweatshirt, my mouth claiming his in a deep, hungry kiss. I could taste myself on him, a musky, bitter tang mixed with the sweet remnants of pizza and weed. I pushed him back onto the couch, following him down. Our movements were clumsy, stoned, our clothes getting tangled. I wrestled his pajama pants and briefs down his plump thighs in one rough pull.
He was already hard, his body arching up to meet mine. There was no finesse, no slow build. I spat into my hand, slicked myself, and pushed into him in one relentless motion.
He cried out, a sharp, gasping sound that was swallowed by the cavernous room. His back arched off the cushions, his fingers digging into my shoulders. The sofa was too soft, too slick, forcing me to brace my knees against the floor to find leverage. It was awkward, animal, perfect. The expensive leather groaned beneath us.
I fucked him like that, on the edge of the couch, my jeans and briefs tangled around my thighs, his pajamas a bunched ruin at his ankles. Every thrust was a punctuation mark in the silent apartment. His moans were unchecked now, loud and ragged, echoing off the bare walls. He wrapped his legs around my waist, pulling me deeper, his eyes screwed shut in concentration.
“Look at me,” I growled.
His eyes flew open, glazed with pleasure and the residual high. I held that contact, driving into him, watching every flicker of sensation cross his face. This wasn’t the clandestine frenzy of the club’s back room or the sleepy intimacy of my bed. This was a claiming. In his sterile, perfect apartment, on his expensive, impersonal furniture, I was making him mine, leaving the scent of us, the sound of us, the memory of this indelibly in the space.
His climax built silently, a tightening coil, before it snapped. He came with a choked, strangled cry, his body seizing beneath me, his release streaking up between us. The sight of him unraveling, the feel of him clamping down around me, sent me over the edge. My own orgasm tore through me, a raw, blinding wave that left me shaking, collapsed on top of him.
For a long time, there was only the sound of our ragged breathing and the distant swish of a car on the street below. The cool, conditioned air of his apartment raised goosebumps on our sweat-slicked skin.
I shifted off him, pulling my jeans up. He lay there, sprawled and ruined on the creased leather, his eyes closed. A contented, almost foolish smile touched his lips.
I reached over to the table, found the joint’s roach, and relit it, taking one last, shallow hit. I passed it to him. He took it, opened his eyes, and took a drag, exhaling slowly up at the ceiling.
“So,” I said, my voice rough. “How’s the studying going?”
He turned his head on the cushion to look at me. The smile widened, became real. He kicked his pajamas the rest of the way off with a tired foot. “I think I’m getting the hang of it.”
“I think I’m getting the hang of it.”
The roach was a tiny, glowing ember between his fingertips. He took a last drag, the paper crackling, then stubbed it out in the ceramic tray beside the stack of Arabic books. I watched the smoke curl from his lips, a grey ghost in the lamplight, and felt something in my chest cinch tight. It wasn’t just the aftershocks of the orgasm, a dull, pleasant thrum in my muscles. It was the way he looked, utterly demolished and perfectly at home in his own ruin. His earlier shyness had been vaporized, leaving this languid, sated creature in its place.
“You’re a quick study,” I said, my voice still rough. I reached over and wiped a slick spot from his stomach with the edge of my t-shirt. He didn’t flinch, just let his eyes track my movement. “Top of the class.”
He laughed, a soft, breathy sound that ended in a cough. “My professor would be so proud.” He stretched, a long, cat-like unfurling that made the leather sigh beneath him. “I have a midterm tomorrow. Organic Chem Two. The kind that makes people cry.”
“And you’re here, getting high and wrecked by a drag queen.” I grinned, nudging his leg with my knee. “Priorities, anak. I like it.”
“He’s not a drag queen right now.” Omar’s hand found mine, his fingers lacing through mine with a newfound, stoned confidence. He studied our joined hands on his stomach. “Right now, he’s just David. Who brings pizza and... dessert.”
Just David. The words landed somewhere soft and unprotected behind my ribs. I squeezed his hand, a quick, firm pressure I couldn't quite control. “David’s still plenty trouble.”
“I’m noticing.”
We lay there in a sticky, comfortable silence for a while. The high was fading, leaving a warm, hollowed-out fatigue. The reality of his clean, sparse apartment started to seep back in, the cold glass of the enormous window like a sheet of ice. My shirt was sticking to my back. I shifted, the leather peeling away from my skin with a sound like tape.
“I should go,” I said, not moving. “Let you cram your molecules.”
“Or,” he said, the word a soft suggestion in the quiet room. He turned his head towards the hallway leading deeper into the apartment. “You could stay.Shower first. You’re… sticky.”
I looked at him. His dark hair was sweat-damp at the temples. His eyes held a quiet challenge, a request cloaked as an observation. The part of me that prized my exits, my clean getaways, my untangled weekends, screamed that this was the moment to go. To let the fantasy live perfectly in the club’s storeroom and on his designer sofa. But a larger, hungrier part—the part that had brought the pizza, that had wanted to see him in his own space—just nodded.
“Your water pressure any good? My shower sounds like a sad kitten crying.”
“It’s adequate.” He sat up, wincing slightly, and gathered his crumpled pajamas. “This way.”
The bathroom was all grey slate and chrome, sterile as a museum. A giant rainfall showerhead hung over a basin big enough for a small car. He turned the knobs, and steam began to billow, immediately fogging the massive mirror. He shrugged out of his sweatshirt, letting it drop to the floor. His back was smooth, a soft, rounded landscape in the humid air. A faint, red mark from the sofa’s leather was forming on his shoulder blade.
I stripped off my own clothes, leaving them in a pile on the cool slate. The hot water was a shock, a cascade that hammered the tension from my neck and shoulders. I stepped under the spray, letting it sluice over my head.
A moment later, the glass door slid open. He stepped in behind me.
His arms came around my waist, his body pressing against my back. It wasn't a sexual move, not yet. It was just closeness. His cheek rested between my shoulder blades, his breath warm against my wet skin. I could feel the steady thump of his heart against my spine. The water beat down on both of us, steaming and endless. I let my head fall back against his shoulder.
We stood like that for a long time, saying nothing, just breathing in the steam. The world narrowed to this small, wet cube of heat and skin. My carefully constructed walls, the ones fortified with sequins and stage lights and sharp-tongued banter, felt porous here, dissolving in the condensation.
His hand slid up my chest, over my sternum, coming to rest flat over my heart.
“Your heart is going so fast,” he murmured into my back.
“Adrenaline,” I lied, my voice muffled by the water. “Coming down.”
“Liar,” he whispered, but he held me tighter.
He reached for the body wash, a scentless, clinical bottle. He poured a slick pool into his palms and began to wash me. His hands moved over my shoulders, down my arms, across my chest with a thorough, almost clinical tenderness. He turned me gently by the shoulders, soaping my back, his thumbs working the knots from my muscles. It was so intimate it stole my breath. More intimate than anything we’d done with our bodies before. When his hands slid lower, over the curve of my ass, they were just cleaning, claiming no territory.
Then he was on his knees on the shower floor.
The water plastered his dark hair to his skull, streamed down his face. He looked up at me, his expression serene, resolute. He took me into his mouth again, under the relentless spray. The hot water made everything slippery, intensified every sensation. His mouth was a warm, perfect contrast to the pounding heat from above.
This time, it was slow, agonizingly so. He worked with a focused, devotional patience that made my knees weak. My hands found the chrome rail on the wall, gripping it until my knuckles ached white. I watched him through the veil of water, watched his head move, watched the muscles in his jaw work. The steam thickened the air, filling my lungs.
"Fuck, Omar," I gasped, the words swallowed by the roar of the shower.
He didn't stop. He took me deeper, his throat opening, until I felt myself hit the back. A raw, choked sound ripped from me. My hips jerked involuntarily, a shallow, desperate thrust. His hands came up to my hips, not to still me, but to guide me, encouraging the slow, measured rhythm.
It was too much. The tenderness, the steam, the kneeling submission in this sterile, beautiful room. The pressure built, a tight coil in my gut, then snapped with a force that blurred my vision. I cried out, a sound I didn't recognize, my body arching into his mouth as I came.
He stayed there, swallowing, until I was soft and shuddering, until the water began to run cool. He rested his forehead against my thigh for a moment, just breathing. Then he pushed himself up, his knees cracking softly. He was hard, the water beading on his skin, a flushed and beautiful wreck.
Wordlessly, I took the soap, worked a lather in my hands. I returned the favor, washing every inch of him with the same deliberate care he’d shown me. When I wrapped my hand around him, he gasped, his head falling back against the tile with a soft thud. It didn't take long. A few strokes under my practiced grip, under the hot water, and he was coming over my fist, his release mixing instantly with the shower's spray, his cry short and sharp against the tile.
We rinsed off, the silence between us now a living, breathing thing. We stepped out onto the plush bath mat, dripping and clean. He handed me a towel, soft and white and smelling of nothing.
We dried off in his bedroom, a space as minimalist as the rest: a low platform bed with crisp white sheets, a single framed abstract print on the wall, a laptop glowing softly on a desk covered in neat stacks of paper. The emotional nakedness from the shower clung to us, more exposing than the physical.
He pulled on fresh boxers and a t-shirt. He threw a similar set at me—soft grey cotton. I dressed in his clothes, the fabric smelling of his detergent, of him.
“You can have the bed,” he said, not meeting my eyes. He gestured to the armchair in the corner, the same deep burgundy one from the living room. “I’ll just… I can study there for a bit.”
I looked at the bed, then at him. The empty expanse of white sheets seemed like a question, one he was too afraid to ask directly. He was offering me an out, a way to keep this contained, temporary. The gentle rhythm of the night was shifting again, moving toward a precipice.
I walked past the bed. I went to the floor-to-ceiling bookshelf beside the armchair. It was crammed with textbooks, thick and intimidating, but also with well-worn graphic novels, their spines cracked. I ran a finger along them.
“You read all these?” I asked, my back to him.“Most. When I need to… escape.”
I turned to face him. He was standing by the foot of the bed, looking small and uncertain in the oversized shirt.
“Come here,” I said, my voice quiet.
He took a hesitant step forward.
I closed the distance, backing him up until the shelves pressed into his shoulder blades. The leather-bound spines of chemistry journals dug into his back. He looked up at me, his dark eyes wide, questioning. The clean scent of his soap on his skin was overwhelming.
I leaned in, my lips grazing the shell of his ear. My voice dropped to a low growl, a contrast to the gentle shower, a reclaiming of the dynamic that had brought us here.
“You want literature?” I breathed.
I yanked his loose pajama pants and boxers down in one sharp motion, the fabric pooling around his ankles. With my other hand, I grabbed his wrist, forcing his palm flat against the thick, growing hardness still confined in the soft cotton of the borrowed shorts.
He gasped, his whole body tensing against the unyielding books.
I held him there, pinned, my mouth against his ear.
“This is fucking Shakespeare,” I whispered, my voice all gravel and heat. “Tragedy and comedy in one act.”
My hips pressed forward, letting him feel every solid inch of me through the thin fabric. His eyes were squeezed shut, his breath coming in ragged hitches against my cheek. I tightened my grip on his wrist, keeping his hand exactly where I’d placed it. The quiet of his pristine apartment was now deafening, broken only by the sound of our breathing and the faint rustle of pages behind his head.I did not kiss him. I just held him there, a prisoner against his own books, letting the promise of what was coming vibrate in the scant, charged space between us. Letting him feel the undeniable, arrogant truth of my body against his, a truth no formula in his textbooks could ever begin to solve.