“Why are you reading Dead Souls? I fucking hate Gogol.”
“You fucking hate all of Russian literature.” He hastily closes the book and we nearly kiss and quickly lean back as we agreed to meet on said bench in park. I wonder if men blow each other somewhere nearby and he just squeezes my shoulder and waits until I meet his gaze, rolling my eyes. It’s weird not to touch, knowing that this torture is nothing compared to a three months chastity and we just discreetly sit a bit apart, trained by sole morals we will never follow. Lana’s voice rings in my ears, but I can’t keep my eyes off him as he stands up and smiles at me.
Fuck.
He has no idea. No fucking idea. I look at him like I am about to get shot, but I’m not and I’m just scared of a fucking duck shooter, the gun will be pointed above to shoot if it decides to, I’m not even sure if it’s onstage. My hands shiver and I shove them in my pockets and stand up after him.
“I missed you.” Is quickly uttered from my lips and he just gives a sad smile and nods, it’s not vacant or public, but we keep ourselves, we let ourselves stand before we slowly start walking. I wonder if I even have the time to drag him to any hotel, any alleyway as I just feel lust overpouring and he doesn’t look better and neither do I want to fuck on his bed. We’re a bit too silent, watching each other’s feet or faces as we keep walking and Lana still sings Alison’s presence in my mind as I’d just shut my eyes.
“Alex... you alright?” Jamie asks quietly and I realize that my vision is whitening from the anxiety and I just shake my head and excuse myself and he just tells me he is far from better. I can’t help but just stare at him. How the fuck can I even survive three months if I barely did hours? I’m just losing blood,
loosing, loosing blood. I just shrug and we walk on as he puts his arm around my shoulders. I wonder if I should take it off, but instead it feels a bit lighter and we both smile at the touch as he manages to rub my shoulder or stroke my neck from time to time and that is a comfort you barely get outside as gay men.
The image of Lana making out with Alison seemed to dwell with my sanity and giving me shivers with its length of explicitly, that Jamie just stopped and stood in front of me as I snapped back into reality and just shook my head at nothing as he seemed to wander on his thoughts regarding Lana, without knowing it.
He has no idea.
For some reason, shamefully, it shakes me more than Alison not knowing about me. Maybe because it was hidden, but it’s a sealed envelope on both sides from both spouses.
And he keeps talking in my head, all the repetition and all of his own toned down jealousy that Alison had been sleeping behind his back even if it had been years and how he had struggled, because once it starts you just know and Alison herself would just watch him, silently asking him to choose the cards for her and he would never ask her back. It amused me how come their own infidelity and lack of knowledge seemed to be their eternal glue only was their eternity just as far from fragile as the real word?
I am the culprit, I am surely not the cheater, but you also blame the dettonated bomb don’t you? It’s the one which is causing the damage and it just baffles me, if they ahd given their vows what is that is keeping it from following them and as far as I understood he had been with Miles even slightly before, if my memory didn’t jig anything up. And it’s an odd image and I wonder how much in turmoil had he been, fucking his wife’s brother and to make it even worse, I’m not better, I had slept with Miles, all that is left is me and Miles to sleep with Alison to make a full fucked up harmonious tribe. And it gets worse once the thought is seeded and I can’t take my eyes off Jamie, as he wonders himself how further to go and the anxiety seems to trickle down my back, like blood and we hold our silence, maybe to get used to the fact that soon enough he won’t be there to accompany my silence, at least for another two months.
And he’d have a second child.
And we’ve got much more time to wind, that I just keep strolling in the park, Jamie picking up the hint and we keep winding around, around all the children and their slides and the couples, making sure that we don’t look like one at all. And it feels obscure for either of us to be without a uniform and I can only imagine how tired would Jamie look when he’d have to put it on now for both children and maybe tell how he had yelled at Juju to mop the decks.
Julian. Right.
It’s odd how I can get away with it and Julian wouldn’t and I try not to think of him, as if cheating is a much worse sin rather than me sending off Julian to jail, but if there is God, then it would be only advised that I am the sinner with my practices, but then I would be condemning someone with the same practices? So does that make me an exiled Angel yet not evil enough to go to hell or does that make me the Devil himself? But these questions just linger and Miles’ religiousness makes much more sense when putting him next to Alison, but then how does it work? How does Alison keep her mouth shut when she predicts the future and how often does she nod saying she only played as a child, when her deck is more tattered than anyone’s hidden notes?
And how does one’s religion stand and when are we condemned and my silence is much more brutal than I’ve even imagined that Jamie just looks around before standing in front of me a bit too close and his dark green eyes dig into me and he asks his question, stating his long concern and I have to sigh. I have the one shot to ask regarding Miles and his religion or Alison’s faith or rather what does he know about Lana and even if I would choose about Lana, how do I even ask such?
My hand twitches.
“What about you... and Alison?” I ask softly, rubbing the back of my neck, feeling the end of winter glimpsing in the long lasting chills even if it’s January, we shall live in the illusion of it’s defeat even if the trees are the prettiest.
“What about Alison?” He blinks back, still standing in the position and I just look around, hoping anything which seems like lovers to me wouldn’t seem like anything else to anyone else. And the question remains once you go on a ship, where frankly everyone seems to have their tongue down someone else’s mouth, how far do actual traditional values go and how many people even believe in them? It’s even a question of my own fairness, I had given up on finding women because I didn’t seem interested, but here was Jamie with Alison and they had both queer loves on the side, but how was the actual core of their love? It extended, but how much would it hold, how much would it break?
“Did... you ever find out?” Jamie just quickly shakes his head and then just shrugs, going back to my side and taking out a new cigarette box, opening it and offering me one cigarette. I long for wine now. But I take cigarette as a cigarette and a substitute for wine since there is nothing else to lavish on. He lights my cigarette first and I inhale, feeling the bitterness trace patterns on my tongue and try to darken my soul before I exhale, watching the flame touch Jamie’s as his eyes are held firmly on the cigarette and I watch his eyelashes nearly against his skin as he closes his eyes to inhale and then exhale, our smoke meeting somewhere from each cigarette and being exquisite lovers at some point just to vanish, like anything does.
“I’m sure it’s some man I don’t know, at least I think. I think I’d get a hunch of something.” He pauses and I just bite my bottom lip, watching his starry confusion. “I dunno, I’ve thought about it. How he’d look like and what would attract, maybe he’s on shore, so that’s the appeal? I mean, I am barely home and when bitter she would say that she never had the appeal to the uniform.”
He takes out the cigarette and looks at the building ash before blowing on it.
“She always says it was Miles who had the idea that the uniform was appealing.” He smirks sadly and I wonder how much does Alison know and how much had Miles even tried to hide it or was it the work of Jamie’s cards? “So... ironically Miles was in for the uniform.”
“Yeah, Miles told me.” I interrupt him and his attention just snaps back and he looks through me and I just look down, feeling all descriptions fall away from me and I can feel Miles’ taste on my own lips and I wonder how deep has Miles tasted fear on himself. “He told me that he went to the navy because of you.”
“Oh.” He mutters and cigarette back in mouth, inhaling as he pulls his collar up, as some wind happens to greet us. “Yeah, the cunt did. Well, nothing I can do.”
Jamie holds his pause for a second, even if he’s over it, he’s still got the ashes scattered on his fingers. Even on the lightest day, anger still seems to trail even when the person is not in sight and I always thought that it was the longest which are the easiest to forget, but even if they are, they have the longest anger sometimes, the old frustration tickling like tar at the end of the shoe.
Lana’s still on the edge of the blade. And Miles fogs up my mind.
I should’ve followed her. But then I’m not sure I’d want to know more and not tell Jamie about it.
How the fuck do I even say it? Hey, actually, Alison isn’t banging a man, it’s actually one of my female best friends and don’t worry, she’s always lovely to every wife she’s fucking. That’s not awfully comforting, but then I happen to be the same grenade as Lana. Only I don’t think Lana gives much of a shit right now with Alison, probably if not fucking just leaning against the kitchen counter, pouting and pretending she knows nothing. And the fact that two people are together who I’ve known seem to be lovers is like finding out something simple in school which everyone else has known. It’s like finding out that two simple things can do something else.
But then maybe it is a jump into the ice cold winter water.
“It’s not... a guy.” It takes a moment for Jamie to register what am I even uttering and I feel like the bearer of bad news, I feel like I am the grim reaper and there’s nothing I can do and I can see Alison putting her cards in front of me and I wonder how come am I judging her as well, when Jamie is far from better and he had cheated on her much earlier. Jamie just keeps looking at me and he increases his speed and soon enough discards the cigarette. His pause is chewed upon. I don’t see him shatter, I see his curiosity build up and I could see him confront Alison with his own guilt at far more than plain human doubt, but he wouldn’t do anything drastic, as both are at fault and maybe the altar is much further from him and I wonder if Miles had even been on his knees during their wedding ceremony.
If to judge Alison, how could I not judge Jamie?
Does love make us blind or does it make us realize how complex people are? Because then you no longer see how the person was before, I don’t see the introverted, grumpy, constantly reading novels captain who only exchanges words with Brian, I had only known he was married from Miles.
I get too scared sometimes, what if there is something I had not unfolded with the fear of the moment, even if I am the best of ease with him and each night’s wonders are entangled with him among the covers and it aches every early morning to sit up and awake him before leaving and wondering when would I even be able to share a bed with him. It dawns on me that during some shore leave which was in a city we had nowhere to stay we could’ve stayed at any hotel, just to open the blinds together and be entangled in a hotel smell which would stain the memory with its staleness. But then we would wake at a different hour and with the illusion that we could just be together. But then what would happen and I had no intention of dragging him away from his wife, even if I desired to wake up next to him. Not every morning is given for you to be awoken by a beloved, because it just feels like if there ever was a God, he was never interested in shaking his dice at any queer men even if we seem to get much more pleasure from each other that all the morals and teaching are believe me far more deeper than temptations. I think deviant sexuality just makes you think deeper, how further would you go, for a plain human desire which seems to be questioned by those who have never wanted something as much as a different human being.
“I just found out. I wasn’t keeping or anything-” I start talking, but instead he just shakes his head, before speaking swiftly.
“I think it’s best for her to tell, Alex.” He takes out the same pack of cigarettes and he starts playing with the box and I wonder how old is the guilt and if it’s the one bringing the anchor down and how much bitter is it making the wine. I sigh and I nod and I struggle to ask him if he wants me to tell, but instead we just walk on, back into town, out of the park, as if watching winter unfold and fold, the cold coming and vanishing, children dressing in different attire, women looking interested and us just going on, wondering what other twists await after the war and our own lives, which women seem to be solely sidetracking.
And I stop at a small cafe, scanning the menu and Jamie just stops besides me and I try not to return his gaze, to keep it far discreet and we keep it at such, as he finishes smoking his cigarette and we just walk in, feeling the frost leak inside with us, as I feel some deja vu, but I keep my silence.
“...You know her then?” Jamie asks me, as we both remove our coats and we both seem to be fancily dressed for later’s evening at Alison’s, but it’s getting far too cold and neither of us wants to depart, even if it’s not spoken and I wonder how much had wine loosened our tongue at night? I sigh, don’t hesitate and I nod. I wonder if he will leave it as such, as he takes my coat to the coat hanger near the door before we get seated.
I feel younger again and I look out at the window, leaning against the table, not even opening the menu, as I feel my whole body ache with Lana’s entire weight and her long lasting history of numerous women and her stories when neither of us could fall asleep and I wonder how mentally long was it, when I had just started sleeping with Paul. It seemed so far ago and since then I had slept with numerous men and even found a man I loved. I looked at his circles.
“Jamie, are you sure you don’t want me to tell?” I speak quietly, as if someone knew and we could get heard, but everyone was intrigued by their own lives and how their winter would go. It feels odd to have him opposite and not hold his hand or have my fingers in his hair or in any other weird position on the bed. He just shakes his head.
“Alison doesn’t have anyone to tell about me, as far as I can tell, so it would be unfair and it’s not about who she is cheating with, but rather that she is. Same for me, Alex.” He sighs and just flicks through the menu, muttering that there’s no point in eating for now and I just feel even more hunger to touch him and I look around before I sit a bit closer to the table and I make sure my legs touch his and he looks up with a small daft smile and continues reading the menu, just as silent, even if Alison is more than a deck of cards and always was.
I still wonder how deep does their love go?
How deep does love go?
I know when I look into his eyes, memory or not.
I hate that there’s people and I just dig my nose further into the menu, nearly pushing all of me under the table just to hug him somehow. I’m considering the hotel even for a hour.
-
And welcome to a whole month of To Miles again xD so here I am again and November and 50 k of To Miles to go. I know I won't get to the ending because there's kind of… a lot of story arcs to cover and I'm happy that we're getting closer to Matt as well and I really enjoyed writing the brief memory recollection which Alex had. In general I really love Matt and he's a lovely contrast to both Alex and Jamie, who currently are stealing the show.
And of course I'm loving Miles and what he's got up his sleeve and there's a lot with him as well.
In general I got anxious, what if I was musing a lot from Alex's mind and what if this chapter was more of Alex's anxiety rather than actions, but then he's a wreck with Lana's confession and it was actually her first present appearance rather than a flashback. Lana was always one of Callie's favourite characters which I've discussed with her and she always enjoyed her role in the story and I guess since she's a female pilot, since there obviously weren't enough in the US. And I'm looking forward to another female pilot which will show up soon. I know, we'll have a pilot party. I think I've got like… 4 pilots right now which haven't shown up or been mentioned. I guess it's a bit weird because this story is so thought through and who comes back and when, who appears, what happens and how does the war timeline go, who dies, who gets injuries, who ends up where and the epilogue is awfully detailed in my head, expanding over a few years with a few events. And of course I know who keeps in touch, who ends up with who, who dies, who changes profession and etc. In general I like thinking about the epilogue because originally it was awfully bittersweet and I would nag to Callie about it and then the plot shifted and the epilogue is much much less bitter even if the ending itself is less bitter, of course it has the musing and post-war of it.
That's me going ahead.
And in general I reached way way over 100 k and I'm awfully excited because I've never written anything this long and this is my first historical novel and I've never really loved the characters so much. And I guess of course even if it's less personal than people might think, I still give a lot to the characters of my traits and my own insecurities and thoughts, my thoughts on religion and what not. So I'm quite happy of my choice of expanding To Miles for November.
I don't think I openly hate a writer not for the bigotry, but for the actual context, as much as I hate Gogol and I've talked about it and of course he was added again, I believe.
I feel like Jamie waited to say that phrase the whole novel xD
While I was writing about men blowing each other the "influence" was honestly more of me thinking of the park in Mishima's "Forbidden Colours" where men would cruise. Dunno, for some reason that's my first association.
The losing blood bit was because I remember back when I wrote Hince's love confession to Alex, I was quite irritated at my ex and I kept musing on love and in general a lot of my fiction was touched by the anger, I guess the clearest example in To Miles is the character of Miles, his actions and his development because I would use my love for her as I would describe Alex and Miles and I guess how things got worse it took a toll on them and they've got much more ahead so yeah, but a lot, the rough feelings are still there, the basics for them, I guess. I dunno, I'm not fond of pretty much saying "that's ridiculous" it happened, it was my own mistake or jumping into something far too fast, I don't know, but I don't see the point in denying. But then you could argue that I could pretty much be softer, but we all fuck up, we all continue fucking up and I seem to be too brutally honest for own good.
And I was comparing my feelings to her which was drowning while Callie seemed like blood to me and the more Jamie and Alex kept falling in love the more I realized where the actual relationship was, I guess. It's odd to say that they're the only relationship because they're not, they're both men, there's a lot ahead for many many characters and Alex. That's why I like To Miles because Alex has a lot of relationships. So losing blood is really the loss of the beloved or rather lack at a certain time. Funnily enough they'll be on letters now, since me and Callie were LDR for quite a few years.
And regarding Hince and Alex it's funny that they've only been together for a few months and I already kind of have the rough confidence I have from Callie when you think of it, nearly four years is a fucking long time (one month to anniversary :) ) but I dunno, you just know when it happens and I guess that's with Alex and Jamie. I dunno, I jus grew to love them deeply and there's a lot ahead and I'm trying to speak from just knowing this chapter so yeah, bear in mind that I just might be saying all is good and then all will change. I'm fucking around xD
The bolded "and" is where I started nano so that's where I binge XD
I pretty much shoved all my thinking regarding Alex being the lover as Jamie cheats on Alison with him and Lana has the same situation.
Julian has been going on since chapter one xD he was planned to be the first to send off and here he is xD
I've thought about the scene of Alex and Jamie discussing Lana so often that I couldn't recall if I had some sketches of it somewhere or not, I didn't xD and of course Jamie always thought it was a he. (I erased a spoiler here, haha xD)
And I realized that they haven't properly seen each other on the light of the shore, so it's quite an interesting thing and I always got ticked off that novels end once the couple ends up when in reality you still have to understand how you go, in life the credits don't roll regardless how hard you try on a happy moment, you go on and discover again that your lover likes vanilla milkshakes.
I hope you enjoyed it and yes, the dinner scene is soon XD
Thank you
<3
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