49. HORRIBLE

/Max/

"Daniel's surprised and worried face is more of a slap than a comfort.
I can clearly see the anxiety in his eyes; he's definitely worried I'm sick and, given how I showed up in the middle of the night without warning, and especially since I haven't dared to do so since we broke up, it's obvious he thinks so.
Then when he realizes I'm not sick, at least not physically, his eyes fill with terror. Terror and panic.
What the hell is he supposed to do with me now?
Because it's clear, it's obvious why I'm here.
I'm sick, I'm emotionally shit.
His mind is surely replaying that conversation from a few weeks ago, when I asked him why he liked me and why he accepted my advances, and he understands I'm experiencing a sentimental disappointment.
I feel so pathetic, so wrong, so flawed.
It's impossible to love me, to want me. Only he did that. Only he wanted me. Only he liked me. Only he truly saw me and desired me. With all of himself, and he wanted everything about me, not just my body, not just my orgasms.
How could I leave him? How could I screw everything up so I wouldn't feel guilty about flirting with Charles? Hoping to fuck with him?
What was going through my head? How could I?
We look at each other in the doorway as he realizes everything and understands everything in detail, with the only dark question of who has done this to me.
He also knows why I'm here now and what I want and he knows how it would go if he let me in. That it would only be one night, just this one, then I'd leave and he'd go back to being a total shit, starting all over again.
And I understand all this, I understand it really well, but I'm absolutely incapable of stopping and being less selfish than Charles was.
I can't do it.
Please, please let me in.
I must look so devastated, so broken, so pained that finally, after an obvious internal struggle, he steps aside and lets me pass.
I cross the threshold, he closes the door and before he can turn around, I take his face in my hands and press my mouth to his like that time.
Now, however, there's pain, cold and disgust, and he welcomes me, just like that time, but not the same excitement. There's a mistake.
That mistake we both know we're making, but despite everything we don't stop.
His hands on my hips, I pull him toward his room. I could reach it even with my eyes closed and that's more or less what I do. As I walk, I grab the collar of my shirt and pull it off, separating our lips just a little, just long enough to get rid of our respective clothes.
When we reach the bed, I resume kissing him passionately and my hands immediately reach the waistband of his boxers.
I missed his warm, muscular body, I missed his tattoos, his warmth, his scent.
I missed him. Because he's always been there for me. I liked him, as a person, as a human being, a wonderful human being. I'll always like him even if he's not Charles and never will be.
But he's someone who welcomes me into his arms and accepts me when I jump on him and ask for warmth; he doesn't reject my mouth, he doesn't reject my tongue.
He lets himself fall onto the bed as I push him. Before climbing on top, I take off my boxers and then I crawl on him like a selfish snake seeking warmth, the warmth I don't have and that I need. The warmth he's full of.
Dazed, he lets himself be overwhelmed.
I devour his body with my mouth and he accompanies my head on its descent towards his erogenous parts. I know where he likes me to lick him and I get there without hesitation.
Daniel moans and sighs and when his cock grows hot and throbbing in my mouth, like it hasn't been in a long time since we were together, he pushes me away and reverses our positions, taking care of me himself, with sweetness and desire. He doesn't hold back, he doesn't have fear, even though he knows he's hurting himself. But he absorbs me with pleasure, makes me his. He kisses me sweetly and devours me and I let him eat me.
When he finally comes in, I close my eyes and lose myself, pressing an arm to my face; for a moment I imagine it's Charles, like the last times we did it.
The only way I could come when I was fucking Daniel, in the end, was thinking about Charles. I was cheating on him with my mind and soul. It wasn't right to stay with him; I left him so as not to cheat on him, but somehow I think I did it anyway.
I'm the worst person in the world and I come thinking that maybe, one day, I'll actually be able to have Charles's cock inside me.
When Daniel moves my arm to kiss me, I welcome his mouth keeping my eyes closed tightly and I think, who knows, maybe one day it will be Charles's mouth on mine. And he won't stop slipping away like he does always.
Who knows, one day.

His heart is now back to normal and beating at such a calm and peaceful pace that it has the same effect on me. Maybe it does more than the fucking and the orgasm, which I desperately needed anyway.
His fingers gently caress my back and lull me into the sleep I'm fighting so hard against. I don't want to fall asleep here.
As I lie on top of him, the fog lifts and leaves me with a monstrous image of myself. The same mistake Charles made with me, the same suffering he inflicted on me, only worse in my case because I also fucked Daniel.
- You shouldn't have accepted me. - I say hoarsely, my mouth moving with difficulty against his chest. I feel him shiver.
- And you shouldn't have come. - It seems logical. I sigh and shake my head.
- Now you'll feel like a shit.
- You don't look like you're having a good time. - a valid answer to every question.
- Why did you open the door and let me in? - why do I want to hear it so badly? Because I need it, I really need it. I ask him as if I were accusing him of something, but in truth I know why I push this button. I know what I want. I know what I'm looking for and as always, he never disappoints me. Because on the face of the Earth, Daniel has always been the only one who never disappoints me, and I know it will always be that way. Whatever I do now or in the future, he’ll never disappoint me.
- Because I still love you and I’ll always open the door to you, Max. I’ll never leave you outside my door if you want to come in.
It doesn't take him long to say it. I squeeze my eyes as they burn with emotion; this was exactly what I needed and I knew only he could give it to me. I don't know if I'll ever meet someone like him again, willing to always give me everything I want and need. I don't deserve him, that's the point. That's why I left him. Because I was fucking him thinking of someone else, while he was still giving himself to me without reserve.
Why don't I feel the same?
I turn my head and press my face into the center of his chest, right where his heart beat and the world fades away. Our scent. I smell him like Charles does to me every time he puts his nose on my neck and as he comes back to my mind, I sigh and shake my head and with a strength I didn't know I'd already recovered, I push myself up and sit up, immediately turning my back to him. I place my feet on the floor and grab my boxers.
The cum is still encrusted there from when I came rubbing myself against Charles.
I'm the most wrong and disgusting person in the world and it's obvious Charles doesn't love me back. How could anyone like me, asshole, insensitive and selfish as I am?
I'm nothing, not even particularly handsome. My body doesn't even remotely resemble Daniel's perfect, sexy body, and my face isn't even a reminder of Charles's perfect face. My personality sucks, it's the sum of every flaw. They call me Mad Max because I'm not reliable or serious, I'm not a person you can count on, I'm nothing and they're right. They're all right.
It's just like my father used to say.
I'm a constant failure. I'll never amount to anything in life, in any field, because I suck at everything I do.
He was right, in the end.
I put on my shirt and get up, looking for the slippers I lost somewhere in his house. Before leaving, I go back to look into his room. Daniel is still lying lasciviously and sadly on the bed, with the melancholy look of someone who knows I won't be back and it won't be easy to get up again.
The look of someone who would gladly avoid going through this damned tunnel again.
You're a real piece of shit, Max. You need to be alone, so you don't hurt anyone.
Be alone.
Just be alone forever.
- I’m sorry. - I whisper in a hoarse voice. Then, feeling incredibly ashamed, I leave.
Even though I'm feeling better and have calmed down compared before, I still feel like a wreck for having hurt someone so badly who didn't deserve it.
A person who wasn't who I wanted, but who was the only one who wanted me. The only one.
How can you be so alone and sad?
My parents really did a shitty job, damn it. A really shitty job. They could have spared themselves the trouble of bringing me into the world; no one would have missed me.
Fuck.”

*2020*
/Charles/

“I don't even know how much time has passed since we talked about it. I can't quantify it because since it happened, it's felt like every day has been the same and hasn't even passed.
If I don't see him, I hear him.
Every day.
Every. Day.
And the worst moments are when he's here with me, or I have to run to him, or we have to find a way to see each other because he needs me in front of him, to touch me.
It wears me down. Slowly. Day after day. Hour after hour.
I know I owe it to him and that I'm just reaping what I sow; this is karma, I deserve it, but that doesn't mean it's easy or bearable.
Sometimes he calls me and just cries.
Other times he tells me he loves me and that he can't stop loving me and that he doesn't know what to do.
Other times he seems to be doing better, but he acts like he ignores what happened, acting like we've never spoken, like we're together. He just... he pretends nothing's happening and I don't know if these are the times when he's actually trying to move on or if he's just ignoring everything.
He seems to be doing better, then he suddenly comes back to me, out of nowhere, after a good period in which I delude myself that maybe we're finally there, that I can let go.
And no, I can't let go. No, it's not a good period. Not anymore, at least.
His light blue eyes are filled with tears that he sheds as soon as I open the door and he sees me.
I'm having a terrible time not making expressions. I've spent years trying to abandon myself to them, to make them, produce them, express them and now I try like crazy and pray not to.
I'm in Italy, in my house near the Ferrari headquarters, to prepare for the new season. I'm always here these days and he takes advantage of it because he has a house in Milan and in any case the headquarters of Toro Rosso, which this year is AlphaTauri, is in Faenza, still in Italy.
When he did his time with Red Bull, during the preparation or when he had to go to the Factory, he used to move to where they are, but now he's been practically happily settled here for about a year.
When I look at him, however, I immediately understand that there's something different in his eyes than usual; even on his worst days he was dark and sorrowful, sure, but this time there's a different tone.
I know him so well now that I recognize his every feeling and emotion, every nuance. I don't know how he does it.
- I left Kate. - he says like a sudden, treacherous bang.
My eyes widen before I even let him into the house.
- What did you do? - I ask in a strangled voice, frozen.
He stands there for a second, seemingly on the edge of something I can't identify and for an absurd moment, I think he might not throw himself into that ravine, but then he takes a step into the house and as soon as he's inside, it's as if he's diving into that ravine.
His eyes fill with tears and everything begins again, heartbreakingly.
- I couldn't take it. anymore. - he begins, moving in my house as if it were his, as if we lived together.
He’s like a lost soul. 
- There was no point in being with her. I didn't get with her to cover for us, but in the end that was it, right? It became that. And she reminded me of you and I don't know, it felt like she had to cover us up again, but since that's not the case, I said okay, I'll just leave her now. Only now I feel worse because I ran to you, I felt like I was going crazy, I was really short of oxygen. Do you believe me? I couldn't breathe. Maybe I had a panic attack. It's as if doing without her now meant you're next, right? The next one I have to do without is you, right? And I still can't take it. I can't take it...
Pierre paces around the living room and cries and gasps and sobs and trembles with wide eyes in a full-blown anxiety attack, and for a moment I look at him strangely, thinking that if these are emotions, screw it, I don't want them.
To feel so bad for someone? I can't, I don't want to.
Then things end, sooner or later everything ends.
Even assuming I'm not insensitive and that I feel something, that I can fall in love, then it will end. Then everything ends. Will I stay like this?
Fuck, I don't want to.
Pierre is about to hit the couch and fall over from his crazy behavior and I catch him in mid-air, blocking him, stopping him and pulling him into my arms, holding him tightly. I bless those few inches I have more than him and he snuggles against me. As soon as he feels my arms, he fades and collapses letting me hold him. He rests his head on my shoulder, turns his face toward my neck and lies there crying, slowly calming down.
Slowly, his shoulders don't shake and his body doesn't tremble.
Slowly his hands grasp my waist, my sweatshirt, he pulls me tightly and, always slowly, he raises his head. With his lips crawls over my sensitive skin, over my chin that he sucks with need, over my mouth that he presses on, into which he slips with his tongue.
I welcome him aware of what's to come, of how we'll both feel, of how far back we go every time we do it.
Knowing that we can't stop, that it won't be as easy as we thought, that my guilt is so huge that it prevents me from being rational, logical and fair. So I welcome him, I hold him, I let our tongues dance together in our joined mouths, that his fingers skillfully open my wide trousers that immediately fall to my feet.
I let him free himself of his without me moving a muscle, I let him then take off my sweatshirt and his jacket and his shirt.
I let him do everything, let him grab me by the hips and push me towards the sofa, let him lie on top of me, let his mouth slide over my body to kiss me, his lips to caress me, his tongue to lick me.
I let him devour me, let him use me to feel better, let him rub himself, let him suck me.
I let him do whatever he wants with me, because I'm the monster, the asshole, the antagonist who reduced him to this state, who used him to hide, to avoid facing reality, to avoid facing him and telling him the harsh truth.
I'm the retarded man who didn't understand it before accepting it and get him. I fucked him because I needed it and because he was handsome and easy and wasn't Max, because I could trust Pierre and everything would be fine.
Everything was fine.
Until things went badly and I couldn't stop us.
It's my fault he's like this. He cries while he kisses me and while he makes me his.
It's my fault he can't move on.
Will we ever be friends again? Really?
But how will we do it? How can we?
Pierre sucks my cock waiting for me to get hard and I usually think of Max to quickly end what was once a pleasurable act and has now become nothing but torture.
I use tricks, but now I can't even take it anymore.
Now the knowledge that I can't do to Max what I did to Pierre, I can't reduce him to this state, also curbs my impulses and the only clear and crystalline desires I've ever had.
So I won't flip you over as soon as I get hard, and I won't fuck you to make it all end quickly. Because I really don't think I'll get hard.
So I roll under him, bend my knees and give myself to him, hoping he wants to do it this time. Because I don't give a shit even if I'm a virgin from behind, I can't do it anymore. If you want, take me. Do it. Use me however you need, I'm shutting down, I can't take it anymore. I really can't.
Pierre stops shocked by this position of mine. It's the first time I've implicitly asked him to fuck me. I prefer to do it myself because it's always been like this between us and I could do it easily.
But now it's not like that anymore.
Now it's not easy anymore.
I bite my arm bent over my mouth and squeeze my eyes shut, hoping he won't ask me anything, especially to fuck him, because I don't think I can do it.
I don't think so.
Actually, I'm sure of it.
Pierre hesitates for a bit, then seems to think about it and weigh his options. Stop and talk about it now, or just give it a damn and fuck me anyway and try to be top? He's fine with his girlfriend, he can do it with me too, damn it!
If he really wants, this is how we'll do it.
Finally he gives in and does it, diving between my butt cheeks and preparing me as he knows how, taking a bit of time; I even end up liking his finger and tongue inside me, because it feels so fucking good. I think back to that night with Max, when to show me I felt sensations, he put his finger inside me and rubbed against me. It felt so fucking good.
I think back to that time, I close my eyes with abandon and bite my arm passionately, thinking about his finger, and when the finger becomes an erection, the world blurs, memories and times blend together and I no longer know if I'm at my house or at Max's, or if it's November or early February. I no longer know what the fuck moment I'm in or who I'm with.
Who's behind fucking me?
I don't know anymore and I manage to come, as he thrusts and increases the thrusts.
I manage to like it. I manage to orgasm and it feels good.
It feels damn good, until he lets himself fall on top of me, wrapping his arms around my waist and kissing my neck from behind.
Because that's when I smell his scent and the world comes back to me abruptly.
It's a sweet and intoxicating scent, not beautiful, masculine and exciting.
It's not Armani.
It's something feminine, I dare say, like Pierre.
Fuck, I can't take it anymore.

His fingers caress me, but they're distant. I don't feel them. Not because he's far away, but because I am.
I'm lying on top of him; it's the first time it's not the opposite. It's not him seeking warmth and contact on top of me, it's me seeking him, but I don't even know why I do it.
Pierre seems to get it.
- I wasn't thinking... - he murmurs softly.
As soon as he says it, my senses suddenly reawaken, it's as if he's unexpectedly reinserted a plug.
- What? - I ask gasping as I try to refocus my brain and be the one to say the right things at the right time and, above all, in the right way.
We stayed on the couch and covered ourselves with a blanket, both of us lost in a strange, heavy silence. I've become isolated and I don't know how long I've been there, closed in myself almost by inertia, waiting for him to be ready to leave, to get better, to carry on for a little longer before collapsing again. How much will I have for myself this time?
- To hurt you so much while trying to feel better. - he says delicately. He pauses again and only now do I realize I'm not breathing and my heart, perhaps, isn't beating. 
- I didn't realize. - he adds after a moment.
I'm still not breathing, I don't know how long he's saying it and I don't know what I'm doing, but luckily from here, leaning against his warm, comfortable chest, he can't see me.
If I'm also making an apathetic expression or pretending, he won't notice because he's not looking at me.
- I’m sorry. - he concludes.
As soon as he says it I realize that he's genuinely touched and that he has only really understood it now; I remember why Pierre is Pierre and why I cared so much about him and couldn't lose him. In reality I knew it and that's why I wanted to maintain his friendship. That's why I cared and still do.
It's just that I was losing everything, both myself and him.
Only while you're losing yourself, you don't realize it. It's when you find yourself that you realize it, but at that point you no longer know where you are and maybe not even who you are.
The first physical sensation I begin to feel is Pierre's hand gently caressing my back and head. It's here that I realize we've just reversed roles.
I feel so bad, I'm so full, I can't take it anymore so much so that I can no longer hide or disguise it. That Pierre notices doesn't surprise me; rationally, I realize it. Only he in the world could.
But why? Why do I want to cry and bite my mouth to keep from doing so?
It happens to me when I feel deeply understood just when I need it most, about things I care about, things I desperately want someone to understand. When that happens, I feel like crying but I'm not willing to do it yet, I can't yet let my tears go. I don't want to. You don't cry about these things. Then I'd have to explain why and I don't really know. I wouldn't know what to say.
Besides, maybe it's even stupid. Are there things worth crying about?
I'd like to talk and reassure him, downplay it, put it into perspective. I'd like to say something, anything, but my tongue is tied and I'm sure if I opened my mouth, I wouldn't be able to control myself properly. I don't know what would come out. I don't know, above all, how.
So my mouth remains sealed, pressed against his chest and his hand continues to caress me softly as I realize that perhaps that long-awaited moment has finally arrived.
The moment when we can be friends again and stop being lovers.
Maybe we can go back, not to how we were before, but to something similar. Something closer to our true dimension.
Perhaps from now on, we can.”

NOTES: I know, is a chapter sad and cruel, yet necessary to convey their pain, their journey and to better understand their future choices. 
Besides, it's something everyone goes through sooner or later in their lives: a difficult breakup that drags on in the worst possible way, someone rejected too many times by the same person who seeks comfort in their ex only to later regret it. These are all very common things, unfortunately. Everyone goes through them.
When I write, I prefer to show rather than explain, and in this case I hope I've also managed to make the reader experience what I've written. 
Until next time. Kisses, Akane.