A New Kind of Denial

“Oh, look, you’re home,” I heard as I walked through the front door of our apartment after mine and Gavin’s third date. I’d hoped Carson wouldn’t be home to ruin my good mood, but I guess my luck ran out as soon as I stepped through the door.

“Well, hello to you too Carson,” I sighed, kicking off my shoes and throwing my keys down on the table next to the coat stand.

“Awe, did your date not go so good?”

“No, my date went great; it’s you that’s pissing me off,”

“What did I do? I haven’t seen you all day,”

“That may be so, but I’m seeing you right now,” I said, kicking off my shoes and walking towards the kitchen to get something to drink. I was hoping he wouldn’t follow me, but again, my luck did not prevail.

“Do you really just hate me that much?” he asked, his tone of voice changing severely.

“I don’t hate you Carson. I’m just fed up with all your shit,” I sighed, closing the fridge door and leaning up against it.

“My shit?” he asked, folding his arms over his chest and staring at me with curious eyes. “What shit, are you talking about, Mason?” The thing we have going on between us? Because I wouldn’t call that my shit; I’d call that our shit, seeing as how I’m not the only one that takes pleasure in what we do. You know; when you drag your nails down my sides, and when I bite at your neck. When you can’t help but moan out my name because of how good I make you feel. Yeah, I’d definitely say that this isn’t just on me; you enjoy it just as much as I do.”

“Shut up! Please, just stop.”

“What, you don’t like hearing the truth?”

“You think I don’t know everything you just said,” I yelled, not caring that I almost spilled my coke as my hands went flying in exaggeration. “I’m very aware of how my body reacts to you. I can’t help that what you do feels goof. I don’t want this, Carson! I want a normal life! I have something good going for me now with Gavin and I really don’t want to fuck that up! Please understand that here. I love you, yes, but only as a brother. I want to be with Gavin, but I can’t so that if you’re constantly pressuring me into doing things with you! Do you understand what I’m saying?” I asked my twin, looking him straight in the eyes that I know are just like mine. I was attempting to reach down into his cold little heart and make him see my point. Not that that even worked anyways, because he just looked at me for a while before crashing his lips onto mine. “My god, Carson! This is exactly what I’m talking about!”

“And this is what I’m talking about! You can’t deny the way you feel for me!” he yelled back at me.

“It’s not you that I feel for! I feel for what you do to me! Those are completely different things, Carson, and I want to finally put a barrier between those two.”

“But what if I don’t?” he asked, sounding - and looking - a lot more calm than before. “You’re not the only person that has conflicted feeling about this whole thing. Do you think I like the thought of being in an incestuous relationship? I can’t help how I feel about you, mason, and neither can you. You may say that you don’t feel anything for me, and only the things I do, but either way, you don’t want to feel any of it. You don’t want to feel it because it’s coming from me, but I don’t think you realize that I don’t want to feel this because it’s for you. You’re not the only one that doesn’t want this!”

“If you don’t want this than why do you act on it so much?”

“”Because I don’t like denying my feelings!” he yelled, his temper rising again. “Unlike some people around here,” he ‘subtly’ hinted, “I don’t actually enjoy hiding the way I feel, however much I don’t want to feel it.”

“I don’t hide my feelings,” I snapped, slamming my can of soda down on the counter angrily.

“But you deny them,”

“No I don’t, Carson. You don’t know how I feel,”

“I feel what you feel a lot of the time, Mason! We’re twins, and whether you think to believe it or not, we can feel some of what the other one feels! When we have sex, I can’t feel some of what you’re feeling as well as what I am,”

“How do you know my feelings apart from yours?”

“Because I can feel your annoyance, your slightly-there-hate, your aggravation. But I can feel other things too,” he said softly, taking a step towards me again, but not doing anything this time besides look at me kindly. “I feel you love, your lust, your care, and sometimes even your admiration. You’re a complex little boy, Mason,” he whispered almost sinisterly. “and I love that about you.”

He was right actually, and I despised that. I didn’t want to believe it; I didn’t want to think that I actually felt something like that for my own brother, let alone my twin. I mean, I obviously wouldn’t have any issues with having feelings towards Carson if he weren’t by brother. But the fact that he’s related to me really kind of weirds me out. I guess I’ve just been trying to deny it for a while. I want it to go away. I don’t want to feel these things for my twin. I want to go out with Gavin and not have to worry about Carson black-mailing me into doing things with him. I want to be able to be with Gavin and not have that constant thought of me cheating on him with my own brother. I don’t want for Gavin to find out about this and for it to still be going on. “I want this to end.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re right. You’re completely right about everything. I’ve been denying my feeling for you, but that’s because I don’t want to have them. I don’t like the way I feel for you. I want us to be able to just be brothers and not have this complication of incest between us,”

“You say that word like it’s venomous,” he said quietly, as if I just insulted his very being.

“I don’t mean it like that,” I whispered softly, trying to get on his good side, but meaning every word of what I was saying. “I just don’t want that word to define my life. So many people think of it as evil and in fact, venomous, and even though I know it’s not, there are too many that think it is. I’ve already got the ‘bad name’ of gay stuck onto me. I don’t want ‘incest’ added right underneath that. A lot of people think insect is a lot worse than being gay, and I don’t think I could handle both labels and the crap that follows those names. I really just want this to end, Carson. Please don’t make me beg.”

“You just did,” he muttered, looking down at his hands as if he were letting my words sink in.

“Don’t make me beg even more,” I corrected, sighing as I looked around at our kitchen. The sand colored walls seemed as if they were casting judgment on the two of us as we stood between them and argued. There was a case full of wilted flowers in the corner of the room that added more gloom than joy. The low hum of the dishwasher running buzzed n the background. “I just want to be as normal as I can possibly be. I want to date Gavin and not feel guilty while I’m doing so. We need to stop this.”

“I understand,” he sighed, bowing his head even more, seemingly in disappointment.Or maybe shame? “And I think we need to schedule a meeting with Dr. Mendez as soon as possible. Not-” he started, interjecting before I had a chance to jump to conclusions, “because he’s Gavin’s dads’ friend, but because we need to sort this out in a safe environment. And I think he just aught to know anyways.

“Okay, that sounds fair,”

“I’ll go call him and see when he can see us,”