Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cakehole
He thinks I was having a nightmare, Tomas realizes. He is right, Tomas decides. Tomas had prayed to God for guidance out from the desert, and God had replied that Jesus resisted the devil for forty days and Moses had kept the faith for forty years. Tomas will just have to wander a little longer. Nightmares don't have to be nightmares in the moment to be nightmares. They just have to feel like nightmares when you wake up, and realize what you will never have.
Except they are together now, in a hotel, any hotel, on the road together in a location that matters only insomuch as they are together, and Marcus is in Tomas's bed, and Tomas is in Marcus' arms, and as long as Tomas is hurting, Marcus will hold him, and Tomas is hurting because Marcus will stop holding him.
Tomas gathers the scraps of his strength in the face of Marcus' heat, his arms, his gentle murmurs in Tomas' ears that it's alright, it's alright, he's safe; Tomas imagines tying them together into some sad shawl, and slipping that shawl over his skin, so that Marcus did not touch Tomas but the shawl of rags of Tomas' vow, Tomas' discipline, Tomas' repentance, Tomas' friendship, Tomas' love. And when Tomas imagines that, imagines Marcus no longer presses directly against him but that his touch comes through the buffer of the man Tomas tries to be, Tomas manages to push away.
Except they are together now, in a hotel, any hotel, on the road together in a location that matters only insomuch as they are together, and Marcus is in Tomas's bed, and Tomas is in Marcus' arms, and as long as Tomas is hurting, Marcus will hold him, and Tomas is hurting because Marcus will stop holding him.
Tomas gathers the scraps of his strength in the face of Marcus' heat, his arms, his gentle murmurs in Tomas' ears that it's alright, it's alright, he's safe; Tomas imagines tying them together into some sad shawl, and slipping that shawl over his skin, so that Marcus did not touch Tomas but the shawl of rags of Tomas' vow, Tomas' discipline, Tomas' repentance, Tomas' friendship, Tomas' love. And when Tomas imagines that, imagines Marcus no longer presses directly against him but that his touch comes through the buffer of the man Tomas tries to be, Tomas manages to push away.