Thou Shalt Not

Right and wrong are abstract concepts, based on perception and observation. They were both old enough to know that right and wrong were subjective in most cases. This wasn’t one of those.

It was wrong. It wasn’t one of those grey-area, open-to-interpretation kind of things. It wasn’t a question. It was just wrong. Every single one of his senses was telling him it was wrong, but maybe that’s why it felt so good. And to be honest, how can something be wrong when it feels that good?

Every sick minute of it felt disgusting and Mike loved it. He felt filthy. He felt like a total whore and got off on it, looked forward to the routine. Billie would stumble in drunk as all hell and swagger around, Jack Sparrow style. He’d swear and slur, bitch and moan about how much he missed his wife. He’d stumble around the room and mumble a few incoherent lines of bad poetry.

And then he would fuck Mike.

Every single, goddamn time she left, it happened. Billie would wait and wait for her to come like a kid with a tooth under his pillow. And then Mike would wait and wait for her to leave.

He could have said no. He could have pushed his best friend off, pulled away from those pouting Milan lips. He should have, being the reasonable one, the sane one. But he didn’t want to. Of course he tried, the first time. He tried to say no, but those perfect little fingers stole his voice when they danced through his blonde hair. That became the first part of the routine.

Billie would kiss Mike and then break away. And then he’d look at Mike, searching with his eyes for a sign that he should stop. Mike supposed it was his fault for never giving that indication, but it always caught him off guard. Always. After more than twenty years, those perfectly forest-colored eyes stopped his breath.

And then Billie would press his mouth back against Mike’s parting lips. He’d move down to his jaw line, then his shoulder.

And Mike would exhale deeply, feeling every second of it. He’d let himself go, pinned down by his arms and thinking about how wrong it was. He’d groan when those crooked teeth scraped against his neck, when Billie purred into his lips. Wine-flower kisses drugged him until it was over, heightened every sensation. Every time he felt Billie’s left hand on trailing down his hip, it was wrong again.

In the morning, Mike would massage the scratches on his pelvis from the gold wedding band, and examine the ones on his back and shoulders. He would lean against the wall, agitating his raw, bare skin and try to shake the memory and sin, try to confess to the God whose existence he wasn’t sure of, try to promise himself it wouldn’t happen again.

But that low, drawn out moan would echo from nowhere.

Michael.

He wasn’t really all that religious anyway.