No. 1 Party Anthem 10

I always found it terrifying how you could simply erase gay people, that in some cultures they are so frowned upon, that some go on in their lives never meeting someone open about it and it's not hard to just consume media which never mentions gay people as well. When I was told that I wouldn't be accepted because my parents stated they knew little to none, I kind of started shying away from media which just depicts a straight cis life, because I understand what crime those shows end up doing. It's drastic, but I've got far too many wounds. And I looked at Alex, wondering if he had grown up in the same way as we all have. But in the end I just pat him on the head, smiling lightly. It was all for show, because we all try to be a better person when it comes to meeting someone else for the first time, we get scared that we're not attractive enough and then once the time comes where you can either tell the truth or lie, we lie, wishing we were that lie.

I feel like I'm somewhat younger and more romantic for thinking of a reply among the lines of it's about the person you have sex with, but then you can easily have good sex from a hookup, even if my luck had been rotten recently, but Alex was a hookup. I try to remind myself that.

I never understood why the love stories were always built on hookups, I wondered if that somehow would degrade us gay men to being whores, but in the end that just becomes a cliché we have. Just like some go from friends to lovers. Some things in life are predictable so that they seem secure and it's easier not to ponder about it to the point of exhaustion. I wonder if this would be my love story as well.

I just stretch my hand to go through his gelled hair, which is in his usual neat quiff and I can imagine him building it right after brushing his teeth and then look at himself, not blinking, to make sure it stands still and proper. Out of politeness, I don't go much through it.

Touching him makes me want some more. It's always like that with Alex, the hunger becomes animalistic. He looks back up and stares at me and neither of us say anything. I can only believe that there is something going on between us.

“What about you?” Alex asks. “I won't be the only one talking then. Even if you want to hear me talk.”

I realize that it's just something Alex is, terribly cautious and some qualities which don't get under my skin just rub me off the wrong way in the beginning, keeping me aware that I haven't fallen into some abyss just yet which I can't get out of. It's all because it's a question which I myself wouldn't want to answer, as so many years have passed that all the things just intertwine and I happen not to know which ones were really the ones happening. I look out of the window, but Alex doesn't change the subject.

“I always... kind of knew. I've tried women.” I pause. “Because that's what you're supposed to find sexy.”

I tap the table, looking back at the window with the opposite building slowly turning it's last lights off. Not everyone has a free schedule.

“Jamie came out as gay much before than I did.” I see that our friendship would always raise a few eyebrows, especially if I say that Jamie had allowed me to live with him after his parents kicked him out. I keep looking at the window, never wanting to see anyone's face who would expect some sexual resolution between my best friend and myself. “That got me thinking. If someone who I was so close to... came out as gay-”

“You liked him.” Alex blurts out and takes a sip of his tea and I look back to look into his brown puppy eyes. I just shrug, feeling myself get cold and even start shaking a bit from all the weights of the memories.

“That's what my parents thought as well. Before I could even fully comprehend that I liked him. They knew I was gay because I hung out with him, his parents kicked him out for being gay. I guess it was too obvious.” I pause. “He's a great guy. I just couldn't understand what was wrong with him... because it was something in me as well.”

I look at him.

“There is no grand finale, Alex, we never dated.” Alex just looks at me confused.

“Don't, like, you guys fuck your friends?” Is his even more at loss question, as I shake my head. I seem to be handing him more and more confusion. He just looks confused at the present, unaware of what else can come, but I want to close the subject. Then Alex decides to be cheeky. “We're fucking.”

I don't want us to be just fucking. But I don't say that aloud.

I want to somehow fall in love. I want to utterly be destroyed by it, I want to be obsessed and I want the vulnerability and infinity of protection and laughter that comes with it even if it means laying drunken on the floor heartbroken by the end of it.

I want to see how Alex would taste, how would it taste to be fully immersed in him even if I enjoy the sarcasm he shares, I want him fully laying in front of me, I want to forget all the love I've felt and dabbled in before, I want to completely be dissected myself and know that no ghost would look back in the winter's window.

“That's because you want it to be so.” I say swiftly, showing how much I belong to him, because when you're tired you let the beloved take the steering wheel.

“Miles, this is a two player game. You're cheating just as much as I am.” He taps the cup and somehow, all the desire to listen to him talk goes stale and I look outside, all lights gone and the upcoming winter sounds far more hollow than it should be. I wonder if he had wanted to tell me this all along, but I shall always be one to blame as well.

“I completely know.” I admit. I'm not sure that had registered within my mind entirely though. Because I still shift the blame onto Alex, even if I had waltzed into this with barely to much regret. I don't even know how to convey how lonely I feel. I don't know even how to speak properly on the despair I feel even riding the subway, not even getting pleasure from people spotting because all the mind drifts off to is the fact that someone is dating that one or maybe someone in the restaurant called in for a neutral territory but the drink will still be spilled at least on the floor after reaching the face of the former lover.

I would tell myself that I'd prefer it if I had someone else even for a brief while, that's why I had gone to the said party in the first place. I didn't know that the someone whom I'd be dancing with would be with the lights off so that his girlfriend wouldn't see it.

“I still want you to talk.” I confess, looking directly at him as he just seemed a bit uncomfortable for the sudden brush of breach of the NSA. I'm tired of rethinking loves that will never happen again.

“Well, what do you want to talk about?” Alex asks me, stretching out his hands on the table so that they nearly reach my sides, it's a small table in a small place after all. Nothing too fancy, unlike Alex's house which I still wonder how he had managed to score with the current market ranking, but it could be Arielle's and there's just some backstory I am not aware of.

I just stare at my lover, not even knowing how to open up about one's struggles or how to make them speak of their own.

“I don't know.” I confess, confused to the bone where I am even going with this, but I feel as if I'm drinking and I'm about to open a pandora box, but maybe it's best to ask difficult questions at first since we are doing this. “I don't know. Are you engaged?”

Alex quickly shakes his head. I don't even know how this is supposed to be a sigh of relief, but I do it anyway.

“I do have a friend though, older than both of us and he's been engaged four times. Now he's married, but it took him four engagements...” Alex pauses. “Is that the sort of gibberish you wanted?”

Not to feel lonely, I want to add, but I just rest my head against my arms on the table. I motion for him to keep talking, because I'd rather have him on the steering wheel of talking. Have I fallen so low to ask a hookup which is cheating on his girlfriend to give me company? Have I sunk so low? I look into his dark eyes, which only reflect interest and a bit of confusion on where am I going with this. How lonely am I to tell myself this is okay and even drag Jamie's judgement along with mine?

How long will it take for me to tip over and end up in an even bigger mess? How much does he have to talk until then? And if everything does end how long will it take for me to forget? It all just started and unravelled, where is some guarantee that I will remain the constant hook up?

I don't know.

It's like he's engraved in my mind and I understand that it's better to think of him than some suicidal thoughts and he had yanked me out of some turmoil, where I'm just stuck pondering where else does my life go. Where does it lead and how come is everything so bleak? It wasn't a good place where I pondered too much about religion and how come I start working from bed and eat in bed. It's not something I would like to reveal either. It's probably not the best to reveal to your hookup that somehow, they had saved you.

Supposedly we get love when we don't look, but from what I see is when we need it the most. That made me think of fate and religion a lot. But I was too depressed to even think of it clearly, that there was some silver lining, all I could care about was the fact that I would somehow manage to the next day. Jamie had Brian at the time. I had no one, I even wished for something with turmoil, because I felt that it would wake me up from my depressive slumber. And yet the more I get from Alex the hungrier I get for him.

“Anything.” I sigh, looking at him, wishing for him to speak and I ponder if I really force it too much upon him, but the question remains, why do I want him to speak so badly? Why do I force it? Why do I get such a trembling fear of losing him? I look at the table with our hands far too close, but I'm not his girlfriend to touch hands and the intimacy, the dynamics are awfully different. I'm just a hookup with issues that I want to be loved somehow.

“How come you never made a move on Jamie?” Alex asks me and I can only wish he's just probing the water with some jealousy, but I'm more than convinced that it's his straight curiosity on what the hell happened between us.

“I mean, there was always Brian-” I start.

“No, it's not about the boyfriend. What stopped you exactly? Like... that's an excuse you would give yourself, but there was surely something deep down holding you back.” Alex says and moves his hand, possibly wanting to point at me but decided otherwise last minute. Instead our hands get even closer and I want to stroke his hand, but that would really shatter the 'no-strings-attached' thing we are sort of aiming for.

I tilt my head in confusion at first, but the thing is... it's not really something I even thought about before, not something I had thought I would have to dig deep.

“I guess... rejection?” I say, a bit confused, but Alex seems to ponder on my answer, just looking at me, scanning me, as if to see if I'm actually spilling the truth. “I obviously never thought about it. I just always assumed that why would Jamie even look twice at me.”

“He took you in. You guys lived together for a fair while.” Alex shrugs. “It's not something I believe in a lot. Friendship, that is. Long lasting one. Like you always shuffle friends unless they're co-workers because then they can't really go anywhere so you're forced to be friends with.”

He clearly doesn't think of me twice, why do I bother thinking and struggling so much to keep some sort of relation with him? How much does it even take to make one fall in love with you? And why do I label something as love anyway? It's all because Jamie had asked me so. I know that he doesn't feel the same way and it should be a tape that I should play on repeat in my head until my head explodes and only then I'll stop thinking about it.

How long has it been that I've actually started falling for someone who seemed to at least agree to my partner in a dance and had gotten through with it?

I knew that even opening my gob about it, to come clean would be possibly be the world's worst idea. I knew that crying to Jamie that I wanted something messy and exciting was a bad idea. It was all my fault, because I was stupid enough not to realize how much does something one sided ache. It's not like I've never been on that side, because I have, but it's stupid of me to wish something like this and now I'm stuck, asking that somehow he would feel the same way.

It feels like trailing nails on a board. I'm the one screwing my life up. It's my own nails.

I can't possibly tell him that one more thing and I'll be tipped over and drowning. Drowning isn't good, I was drowning with my love for Jamie. I was never saved in the end I had to swim from underwater myself. I know what I'm getting into.

“I guess.” I say, I am much asocial as they can be with frankly Jamie and a couple of other friends. But by the end of the day I always feel lonely and like a loser. I realize that I should say more to keep the conversation going and Alex looks at me, nodding at me to fucking continue. “I'm not one to have many friends. I kind of get entangled in more relationships and everything. Look at me and Jamie, that's the sort of thing I end up with. I end up developing feelings far too much.”

I know I'm talking to much but if I could I would stroke his goddamn face.

I would become productive if I could, but instead I just call Jamie and talk of Alex. I overanalyze everything and I barely manage work. I don't even know where to go from here.

“Alright.” Alex says.

“But I think there's that point where you decide whether you become friends or lovers.” I ponder out loud, knowing that I've said it to Jamie before. I feel like I'm just frantically repeating myself. “Like... with you and Arielle, I guess. You decided to go ahead and have a relationship.”

I don't dare to say us. I don't even want to know what we are and I know that I'm always flirting with him in this odd way I do, which is talking a lot and praying that he would get it. I'm surprised we never met over Grindr, because this could be a success story somehow.

“Because you could have remained friends.” I say, nearly shrugging. Alex drinks his tea and I'm guessing it's pretty much lukewarm by now. I want to ask him, what would being lovers mean to you. What's the recipe? What is it that tips from friends to lovers? And how can I get the right ingredients because I would really love to have something with you?

Alex snorts.

“I love Arielle, but being friends with her... Just friends.” He ponders on it. “Yeah, I guess it could work.”

Fuck. I don't even know why I'm sad anymore. I don't even know how many more paranoia thoughts will lurk behind me during the night.

“But we'll surely not remain friends, if something were to happen.” Alex puts the mug down and bites his lip, looking at me. I feel my heart sink, but I really know that it all means nothing and we're just hooking up, because I initiated it and Alex wanted to see how did it really feel to be with a fellow man.

“What makes you say that?” I ask him and I wonder how the fuck does this even aid me in any way. If I would be able to get together with him, I wouldn't really care about his exes. Instead here I am sulking, because he doesn't feel the same way and he's pretty stuck with his girlfriend.

“She's not one to remain friends with exes and can't say I keep too close to exes either. There's a reason things didn't work out and sacrificing friendship isn't really one of them.” Alex keeps his eyes focused on me and I can't help but look back at his brown eyes, feeling some warmth even if it's not really coated in love or anything. Just some sort of understanding and curiosity, some sympathetic feelings maybe? “You, Miles?”

“Neither, frankly. I'm surprised me and Jamie keep in touch after all the feelings I had hidden.” I laugh a bit darkly. “But then he doesn't know and I would really rather keep it that way.”

We both sit in silence, Alex probably thinking too much about Jamie and I can only pray that there is some jealousy, because when you're desperate you'd rather have any feelings which could resemble any love.

-

Well, this story started to hit home ridiculously for the time being. With the fact that I had started it years ago and now I can finally hug Miles and say some words of encouragement, without knowing what to tell myself. But it's still very different, but of course it matched my mood so I binged the last 900 words or so. I've been slowly writing it and ever since I ended up tangled up I've been writing it slowly with a line here and there. 

I should be posting To Miles and Offside, but since I finished the chapter, I figured, why not? And then the backstory will be fresh to tell in my mind. It's weird because backstories are like my diary really where I just end up venting... to people. Like we all do these days. 

I was in a terribly lonely place when I started writing this, so my mindset was all... How do you possibly get to talk to people who you like and now I'm like, shit, how do I still get them talking though? Since I'm kind of used to a conversation rather than the start of it. Of course I panic when I see that the topic is running out, because I'm a paranoid thing. 

Now onwards to the story, rather than overall. 

I was actually told that because none were known that was a reason not to accept me. Because in our society gays and trans doesn't exist. It's pretty bad, so I just vented on that. 

Yeah, I was always confused and pondered if things really escalated from hookups, so it's quite ironic now. 

I kind of went on the topic of friends and fucking in depth and I have been discussing it overall with a few people, so kind of some thoughts really crawled into this chapter. 

While I was really struggling with being with only partner, Callie was a sweetheart to me and would spend all the time with me which they still do. I still felt terribly lonely and all, but Callie would tell me all these stories, digging out from memory and the engagement story just felt like something I could add. Usually when I just start liking or loving someone I really dip our conversations into stories or whatever is happening, which I still do, but because frankly I've been inspired by Callie for over 6 years now, sometimes it's harder to get fresher inspiration since love becomes blood. I really struggled with it because I tried to be mono, but it's really not for me. 

There's a lot of reaccuring thoughts, because well, that's what happens when you're screwed or at least when I am.  

I'm terribly daft when it comes to seeing other people's feelings and realizing that they are into me. I'm awful at it, so I gave Miles that gift of mine. 

When I dated my ex girlfriend I did a lot of drowning from love metaphors, so kind of having a one sided thing in Miles' case kind of reminded me of that. So I included that in. 

I kind of spoke a lot through out the story, which was very personal, like the jealousy last bit, so yeah. 

I hope you enjoyed it and hopefully my inspiration will last long and I'll have the mental health to write everything down and whatnot. 

I hope you enjoyed it and if you did, please tell me so

Thank you

<3

Jamie

The Blunderbuss Angel Said The Union Is Forever 12

They say that the sex is good if you laugh during it.

Does that mean every single time even, if you're gagged and it's a BDSM act?

I throw around so many words lightly in my mind, as I just look at him, knowing that worry will only hit me right after the morning. But for the night, I'm fine.

But what if I had filled some quota for being loved? What if I can't make more people fall for me?

My mind just keeps rushing to every act and every turn, making it all like a giant puzzle put together where I can only see his face and wonder how will the rest fill out and turn out. Once I walk out, I'm intoxicated from the whole act and tender, trying not to think much of any consequences and knowing that my morals had gone out of the window because of a pair of darker eyes and curly hair. It's about low self esteem and hearing dreams call it a temporary fix.

How pitiful is it to actually start liking someone you hooked up with once? Where does it all end? Must all have an ending? I light a cigarette just to walk further, trying not to think of wives and how our nights should have been spent wrapped in their legs rather than each other's, symbolizing some heterosexual photo where everyone is paired up with the opposite gender like kindergarten to make it look cute.

I keep shaming myself even if he had run the tips of his fingers all over my body by the end of it and I felt passion all over again, something I hadn't had with Kate, making me wonder about our marriage far too much. Maybe it's because no matter how many times I replay it I still cheated and somehow people never find trust in each other. No matter how much champagne is poured over one's head during a wedding and how much cake is stuffed, love ends up dying and it will end at the shy motion to leave before the other partner arrives. There is always shame in every action when all turns to colour from deep depression.

Days pass and it all becomes aggression, a deep desire of wishing of some romance upon oneself that ends up unravelling into another ball of yarn which isn't even a perfect ball, it's just a mess and somehow you can still properly knit a sweater out of it. So does it matter how messy it once was? Can you even label the ball of yarn a ball of yarn then? I don't know where I'm swimming or where I'm heading.

All is whirlwind and it should become a full blown affair where I ask myself with nails dragging upon the skin, what's holding me down? I feel like all I get is emotions with no actions, just words getting thrown harsher and feelings being held down by horses. I can't even be myself anymore. I don't recognize the depression and anxiety I had once faced. It all takes a turn from being suicidal, because now it's all the fear of some incoming love which can't really and shouldn't knock on the door because it's not wanted here-

Instead it's all like holding hands above water. Never to drown and feelings of failed pasts impending because the sea is too damn shallow now. There is no point in dancing anymore either. I don't know for how long can one step aside.

I would knock on his door as he tells me to and I know far too much.

I would never show up on his doorstep just to say that if the cards were played right I would allow love to enter my doorstep. I haven't blushed in years, while brushing my teeth and thinking how long has it been that I had new feelings stir in me and ponder to look at Kate, wondering how deep does all love go. Do we discard old love just to consume someone else and spit them out like gum, used to the flavor?

If love really was a losing game, we wouldn't be holding cards at hand, but do we even have cards? It's really just tumbling and running in a forest at night, not knowing the stars, what stories they tell because you're far too busy asking of my own.

Love is a see-saw. I wouldn't know it now.

Why does one morning change everything? Why is there so much desire to break the coffee pot with the wrongly served coffee?

Love is a see-saw, I get scared of both sides.

There are days when I can't think at all and all is clouded with no judgement, because there's no thoughts. I feel like I start losing the grasp of things. I feel like there is no point in putting ink to paper. Because everything can get scattered so easily and somehow me having a glimpse of luck makes no sense, because someone has it worse even if I have too many torments and I was contemplating suicide at the tip of a blade.

Even the thoughts become jealous of themselves and all becomes far too close to home. There's a desire to live until there is a next time. But the thoughts keep going on and on, because one doesn't ask if the other would like somehow.

When do thoughts become destructive and stop being a journal? I light a cigarette, not feeling Kate at all today and knowing that she would never see me fade, because when you're in love you don't see others fade. There's enough colour to share in the mind. There's enough fear to hide.

It all becomes a dreadful lukewarm wait, where I don't know where my feelings go and why is there a lame see-saw in the first place. Depression hits again, no matter how many cigarettes I smoke and how many people I see crossing the damn street. They all look the same because I don't know them. It's all terribly messy because I wanted it so. And one can never guess the future.

-

I hit an odd slump where I caught myself thinking... Damn, I've never written anything like what I'm experiencing for once. So I ended up being stuck, because there was no story I could choose to pour my feelings into. This story was the wisest choice because Blunderbuss is everything really, it's non-linear, fanfiction of itself and whatnot. If I have an idea and I have nowhere to put it, it goes directly into Blunderbuss if it's a short of short story of it's own which I want to have meaning.

So it picks up the original line of the story with a different, intense story telling now. 

I really enjoy just baring my soul in the backstories, but now it's a bit different. I think I've grown far more secretive, I guess. I had my heart broken not so long ago and I really put myself out there because that's how I deal with heartbreak and yeah. It's been quite a ride so far, so I kind of wanted to strip my feelings down immensely so that I could also proceed onto other projects and see where else my feelings could go after this. 

I've been really battling anxiety and depression big time, so bear with me. If you have tips on how to fight anxiety, please share xD 

So I'm in this place where I'm very protective over what's going on yet really baring my soul out there that I even felt shy and uncomfortable showing my work to Callie who has a full on idea what's going on with my feelings and the whole thing because I really kind of bared everything. 

This is all new to me, like terribly new even if I always thought I was experienced in relationships and whatnot after being in so many and with people of different genders. It's the first thing that I've properly wandered into after coming out as gay and male I guess. I've had crushes and dreadful fails, so this is all new. I even didn't want to do a backstory, but I don't really erase a lot of what I've written, so here I am. 

But then a writer will write and make it autobiographical by the end of the day. 

Now, onto the story. I know, I haven't had proper backstories for a while and I'm shying away from one. But then I spilled a lot already. 

I think it's one of the most true sayings that the sex is good if you laugh, it doesn't mean really every single time, but it's important. I kind of really agree with that even if I'm into bdsm and whatnot. 

I did this in quite a few sittings and my last sitting, was really while I felt a bit numb and depressed so the ending could've been better I guess, but it's not something I can erase from something autobiographical because that's what I was feeling now, since I just wrote that. 

And of course many things were bent to match the story and continue the main arc. 

I actually blushed for the first time in years while I was talking to Callie, so I used that. Have another confession. xD

I hope you enjoyed it and I just decided that if I would force myself to write this to publish it, I would actually get some proper writing done and I really wanted this to be out. I'm sorry for the long breaks and I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please tell me so

Thank you

<3

Jamie

To Miles 59

Dear Alex,

I love you.

I cried even harder not able to read the rest.

Shore leave was gone after that, I couldn't do anything besides just keep existing and waiting from letter to letter from Jamie. I kept thinking about Matt, who I happened to miss dearly and the conversation seemed to be escaping my mind and memory from the sole fact that I couldn't bear it any longer. I expected myself to be living like this when I'd be back on the ship and I had even created a story to tell my parents that things wouldn't be fine with Lana somehow, that I would somehow spill who I was. That somehow all would be okay. But it never would be, so it would be best to leave us all estranged. I didn't speak much, even the story about Lana fled my mind when my mom asked me what was wrong. She was surprised to hear how much I had missed Matt, feeling myself go pale from all the words I was uttering out loud and letting her hear, but she only told me that this was the way I should be missing my dear Lana.

I probably believed her for a mere second. If I had, things would be normal and there would be no struggle. But by the end it wasn't me who would believe in such crap, it was something sold to parents. I wondered why couldn't I open up and what was the big deal. It would end up going in circles and circles in my head, letting me rewrite it every single time with more misery, specifically when I would be waiting for sleep to somehow reach me. There were days where I wouldn't hold and I would want even more acceptance, I didn't want hushed whispers or full on denial, I wanted them to be happy for me and Jamie-

The biggest torture of all was the train back. It was like a terrible, terrible itch which wouldn't go away. I ended up buying some translated Russian poetry and a cigarette case, because I couldn't think of anything else. I kept opening my wallet just to peak at the newspaper cut out I had of Jamie, from that day which I mocked him for. He looked far too serious and I probably should've thrown it out, but it was just a newspaper clipping. At least that's what I told myself. I knew that someone could find it and all hell could erupt and it wouldn't do much good with all the facts that I had been sleeping with so many men, even if I were catching them. Or would that be okay? The scandal broke out because they realized the men themselves were gay. Just because I had a fake girlfriend, that proved nothing unfortunately. Anyone could have one. All that thinking gave me a lump in my throat, pondering too much on what could've happened even if they had called me on shore to report how things were going. But then maybe Jamie had done all the paperwork and all had been done?

I told myself to remember to ask that when I would see him, but instead I just went onwards to board the ship, right on the port, looking at all the other scattered sailors, all still in their uniforms and whatnot, ready to woo whoever they decided to lay their eyes on tonight. It felt nostalgic to be back and back in the uniform, specifically when you can breathe the sea. I couldn't really focus on anything. I couldn't give him the gifts yet either, unless I dragged the sling bag with me. It seemed like a good idea, so I just went inside the bridge, missing my own bunk bed a bit and if it wasn't for the fact that I had a boyfriend in the Captain I would have most likely slept in my bed for a small while.

I was surely shaking and I had the thought whether I should have found Brian at first just to ask him if I could find Captain Hince, but instead I was left with the fact that all the other sailors were most likely on the shore. I wondered if we could make a move somewhere as well, that we could stroll like we usually would, just avoiding the bars which were specifically made for sailors and the gay bars just in case. There were days where I truly wondered what had gone right, that besides Carlos no one really had their suspicions and if we were to bump into someone they wouldn't bat an eyelash. I wondered if it was simply because things were complicated enough as they were.

We had discussed this, that Jamie would be in his room waiting and I paused a bit before knocking on his door. How would I find him? Would he be reading? What would he be doing? I ended up knocking even without realizing it, my heart beating very fast and not subtly at all. The door opened nearly right afterwards, revealing my lover in his flesh, all dressed up neatly in his usual Captain attire, which I couldn't wait to unwrap him from.

“Alex.” He said and just stared at me before we both just threw our arms around each other, kissing already on the lips and cheeks, terribly hungrily and grinning through all of it. I wondered if he was crying, because I had tasted something salty on my lips and I wondered how harsh had he decided to be to the rest of the sailors and how many of them had to mop the decks. I wondered how come he wasn't harsher to Miles, right after we had finished kissing, my body still shaking.

“Are you cold?” He asked, holding me in his arms and just wrapping them tighter around me, kicking the door closed. I just shook my head, kissing his neck and not believing his scent back in my own arms. I ruffled the back of his head, what was revealed under his hat and I didn't hold and took it off, exposing his neatly done new haircut which was frankly everything he had done before. Jamie followed and took my own hat off.

“So... we're stripping already?” I smirked, even if I had initiated by removing his hat. Jamie just smirked, his eyes locked on mine, never stopping from a smile which had appeared even before he had seen me properly in front of me. I now pictured him just sitting there and waiting, something I had teased him that it would be like that.

“I just... want to hold you.” He confessed, running his hands through my hair, not touching the front which I had nervously done before leaving the house and fixed in the train. In such moments I wondered how could anyone even fit in my mind, let alone my heart. Why wasn't Jamie enough? He seemed plenty.

I didn't need to hear it twice, so I just took off my shirt off along with the undershirt right after dropping the bag onto the floor, not caring, exposing myself as if for the first time. The first time had surely gone somehow that we both wished it hadn't, but in the end everyone has their terrible ghosts. I learned to look at it through fingers, just like anyone else would look at their past with any other memory, embarrassed and wishing it would be gone

I went for Jamie's jacket and then for his tie and the rest, so that we could at least have some skin on skin. We started kissing again, this time more viciously, all the innocence gone and replaced with sexual hunger, as if we haven't touched ourselves all this time without thinking of the other. I slid my hand down to the front of his pants, feeling him go hard already, causing me to smirk and stroke him. Jamie mirrored my move, pulling me back into a kiss from smirking and looking at him. I moan into his mouth, as he unzips my own pants.

“I really thought...” I lean back and Jamie is practically glaring at me softly. “We'd have a romantic reunion, Jamie.”

“Nothing is more romantic than fucking you on fours.” He smirks lightly back, before leaning in for another kiss and this time sticking his hand into my underwear, stroking the tip of my cock very teasingly.

“Oh, so you've even got the act planned out, Captain.” I bite my lip, so that I don't moan right between my own sentence. But instead he goes down on his knees, his cock escaping my grasp. Jamie takes out my own and strokes it up and down. I have nothing to hold onto besides digging into his hair and destroying it already while he takes me in his mouth. “F-full of surprises, I see.”

Fuck, I am chatty today. Jamie just looks up at me before closing his eyes again, giving me a rush. He slides a finger inside me when he pulls my pants a bit down, teasing me even more and because we've been so much apart, his sole touch would be enough to send me into an orgasm frenzy. I can feel my legs shaking, as I get very near.

“Fuck. Don't you want to fuck as well?” I say weakly and heavily turned on, as Jamie just continues sucking me off and I lean my head back, moaning even louder as he works on me. “Jamie, I'll fucking

cum.” And I lean a bit forwards, my fingers digging into him as I come. I hold him, thrusting into his mouth as I even hear him gag, but I know him far too well and that only keeps driving me over the edge. I let go of him once I'm done, nearly tumbling, as he wipes off the saliva from his lips and swallows a bit gingerly, but not looking away from me, as I glance down to his own pant situation.

“Who said we're not fucking?” He asks me, nodding towards the bed. I just stare at him, trying not to be surprised at all at his appetite. I just take off my pants, still breathing heavily from the orgasm. Jamie strips down from his own pants, exposing himself as I give myself time to lay on his bed on my back. I take myself in my hands and start stroking already, terribly turned on mentally and soon enough my body should catch up.

I go on my fours and Jamie goes behind me as I do so. He starts kissing my back slowly from my waist and up to my neck, so I turn around and we share a kiss. Jamie spreads my ass, stroking me with his cock before adjusting himself in.

“Fuck, I missed this.” I say as he slides in.

“I missed you, Turner.” He smirks, very turned on and I can feel it.

“That doesn't make me miss your cock any less.” I breathe out very heavily, as he keeps the rhythm, thrusting as I stroke my cock. Jamie keeps pounding me, but we both don't last very long and I'm the one who comes first, not holding from his thrusting and my stroking, thrusting backwards to reach him more. He himself comes soon afterwards, nails digging into my hips, moaning even louder than I had, dissolving entirely in me. Jamie leans forwards, kissing my back again before he slowly slides out and we are met with a mess of cum as we lay down.

“I love you.” He says, grasping for air and pulling me closer, not giving me enough time to reply. I see water in his eyes. “I missed you so much.”

I put my hand to his eyes.

“I love you too and I missed you too.” I kiss his forehead as he rolls closer to me and puts his head on my chest, curling up besides me. I feel guilty for being the one who went away and who was in in turmoil by his own thoughts. I regret thinking of Matt so much and wondering if I should've pushed even more by writing to him more, but that could have ended up weird. But then everyone who knew that I was catching queers knew that I had to report back to Jamie, so would it have been that weird that we ended up bonding as friends, then? Sometimes we all push our luck, just to make it easier. It becomes just a tactic of desperation, because what else is left?

I hold him, feeling him incredibly vulnerable and I can feel every single day he had taken without me slowly start slipping through my fingers, letting the misery somehow go away. I look down on him to see him slowly start drifting away into sleep, his body never tense. I wondered if he could even sleep tonight or if he just stayed away writing poetry with shaking hands or maybe he just stared outside or even smoked on the deck. I remember that one time where we had gone out and talked a bit. It seemed now, looking back, as if that would be something which would have somehow ended up being okay, that it wouldn't be the dystopic reality we are faced with now. I stroke his hair, as he shifts in his sleep, clutching me even more.

I don't dare to sleep, not even leaving much for Jamie. In the end I wake him up lightly by calling his name. The Captain responds by sitting up, pulling the discarded covers with him now. He looks at me, bewildered from sleep and pleasantly surprised that my shore leave is long gone now and will be for a good while. He leans down to kiss me as I respond, holding the kiss.

“You think we should go somewhere?” I ask him, right after he yawns and rubs his eyes like a child. Jamie ponders on the question a bit longer with the fact that he's still asleep in my arms according to him.

“I don't know...” He's far too sleepy. If I wasn't crippled by the fear that what if I am spending too long with him in the daylight, I would be sleeping calmly besides him as well. “We could. Where do you want to go?”

The gifts.

Well, it's a stretch to call them something too fascinating, but I had tried and I walked into the same tobacco store a few times, making the owner probably ponder what was wrong with me and why was I taking so fucking long to buy them.

“Hold on.” I say and I get out the bed, making my way to the bag which was right next to his suit and my shirt. Jamie watches me curiously, as I take out the book and the cigarette holder. I stretch both items to him. I start babbling in my head, before I even open my mouth to apologize, but he looks at me just as excited as if Christmas is coming. “I'm sorry, I couldn't think of anything better other than this. And I've never seen you read Russian poetry... so I figured that you might enjoy that.”

“Thank you.” He says shyly and grabs the gifts and instantly opens the book, going through the pages, interested.

-

First of all, I'm terribly sorry that I vanished off the earth's surface again. I ended up terribly behind on Nanowrimo and I spent all my energy on trying to catch up and I would be writing 2k-4k every day because of that. It was really draining me and doing a toll. But the good news is that I finished the first part of To Miles! So now I'm taking a brief break from it where I'm thinking slowly of the subplots in part two. I need to think how it will go further and where will I end and of course there's a massive epilogue ahead which will I think be around two chapters itself, because there's just so much to tell there as well. I also wrote a lot of Offside which is a Jack White/Jamie Hince football AU since I finished the first part of To Miles. So that's what I did during my Nanowrimo. 

I'm terribly proud of the ending of part one, because it was planned probably from the first few chapters and was a scene I had even roughly written not to forget and to make sure that it would've fit in the story. But I'll talk about it more when the time comes of course. 

It felt very symbolical that my first Nanowrimo phrase was about ending shore leave and it was going to cover all of Alex's time after shore leave until the end of part 1. 

I'm not sure there will be much backstory to To Miles because I was really on autopilot and not much was going on in my love life which is really what usually gives me the biggest inspiration, so it was really my mind just telling the story and I had to get it done fast. 

The gifts were such a terribly headache because I can never really decide what to give people and I try to avoid choosing myself as much as possible, so Alex got the bad quality I have. Usually I just ask what do people want. 

For some unholy reason I've been shaming myself for being polyamorous for a good while now and kind of going in circles of how come is one partner not enough and how many partners can you even be entangled with? So I kind of went to think about it through Alex, even if I know his ending and of course what happens to all his relationships. So I really ponder a lot on it, because I don't really feel too comfortable hiding who I am from a very unaccepting family. It's not like my polyamory is the biggest secret, there's being trans and whatnot. But my polyamory had been dormant for years and kind of feeling emotions again made me question myself and all. 

I also suffered a pretty bad heartbreak with someone else during Nano which influenced me later in my writing, I think. I really tried to drown my sorrows and my biggest cure to heartbreak is to put myself out there and nearly jump on someone else. So I feel better now, so maybe in the future I'll open up more about it, but for now I'm pretty still sad about it. But Callie and my friends were there for me and I'm terribly thankful to everyone who was there. I hadn't ever been turned down so it was a painful first. So that heartbreak made me ponder even more why am I even poly and why can't I just stick to one partner but that's not how I work really. 

So phrases like "he seemed plenty" are really more of my insecurities and making Al question his own polyamory which if there was a scale would be bigger than mine, but who knows now. 

Originally they weren't supposed to be fucking, but here we are with a sex scene because I figured that I hadn't written one between them in a good while. 

Big shout out to Sonic Youth and Muse's early records because without them I wouldn't have finished To Miles part 1. And extra big shoutout to Sonic Youth's amazing song Diamond Sea! I have no idea how many times I've listened to it on repeat. It kind of even became a To Miles song for me. 

I hope you enjoyed it and you can forgive me.

I'll be posting the other chapters as well as the other chapters of Offside very soon! Please let me know if you enjoyed it and thank you so much for your support!

<3

Jamie

To Miles 58

I didn't want to think that this could be the last time I would see home for a reason that I might just not be alive. I thought of other men telling how they had seen hell in war and it didn't matter what would happen anymore. I wondered if those who fought would go to Heaven or Hell. Would we be sinners for spilling so much blood? Me specifically as a gunner, I would be responsible for not just one death, but an entire enemy ship. Did that send me to a deeper circle of Hell?

I ended up knocking on Matt's door, greeting his mother who was just as happy and surprised to see me as if I had just come off the platform and just as if I was her own son, she inspected me to see how I had aged with her own eyes. Matt was deep in a nap, but I decided to wake him up anyway, after all the hassle of going up the same old stairs past photos of my dear childhood sweetheart. I ended up watching him for a brief while, as I was holding the door. I didn't know what to do as my whole body ached to just lay besides him, forget about all the other loves I've had and give in to my first one. Was the first one the true one? Was it really that one? Just because it had yanked me open?

I wake him up and sit on the other end of the bed, kicking my shoes off and just resting my legs on his bed. Matt looks at me sleepily and bewilderedly and by now I should be used to people's confusion, but that is still not the case for me. He just keeps looking at me softly, as if no other love stood between us and I end up shifting slowly to his side, as if it were yesterday again and we could continue the same kiss and somehow get much more. I don't want the hook up to just become a hook up, I don't want to remain thinking that I could have done more and I didn't.

He doesn't kiss me.

He doesn't say a word and I wish I could read his mind, so I lean and kiss his forehead just because life keeps going and there is never an ending until you die, life gives more complications and more twists and somehow much more love, depth and understanding, as if the novel was never enough.

What if he won't love me tomorrow?

I try to calm myself down and I hug myself, as he is still trying to even hold his eyes open and failing, I have to poke him a few times to make sure he stays awake. Eventually he falls asleep again and turns around, which causes me to just stare at the ceiling and eventually I close my own eyes and I don't even know where all this desire to sleep comes out from, but then I barely get any sleep with Jamie and I'm sure that with age it will catch up and I won't stay up as late anymore. I end up fading away thinking of how would it be later on, how will we continue sneaking around and if there was any hope for America. But there was no hope for queer men and nothing was even imaginable. It's some sort of consolation if you manage to go on with life without getting caught just like all the other men who came before us.

Maybe we were both stalling because we didn't know what to say. Was it really it?

We had slept until lunch time, at least that's what it sounded like with Matt's mom knocking on Matt's door. I still sat up fast and moved away from Matt, as she opened the door. But it wasn't a first that we had napped together and the benefit of it all is that no matter how hard you try people will still see it as friendship between two men. Of course in this case nothing had happened.

“Alex, will you join us for lunch then?” She asks politely and it was my turn to see how much she had changed. She seemed to be ageing well or possibly it was because I just saw her as Matt's mom and liked her always with that sole fact. Since we were best friends it was obvious that the parents would accept the other's child and slowly became friends themselves and now were both parents of a navy boy.

“Yeah, I'd love to.” I ponder if I should've given my own mother a call, but I'm not sure what the use would be at this point, I just hope that no extra food will go to waste. I shake Matt lightly as she walks away, leaving the task in my hands and I hope not to fail.

I decide that I can easily just talk to Matt afterwards even if I don't have the right words aligned to speak up. Lunch was taken quite slowly, mostly because Matt was still sleepy and I wondered if he had decided to go elsewhere after the dinner last night or maybe he just stayed awake. He had told me once that he would go through everything in his room nostalgically, and maybe yesterday was one of those nights or days. I thought that I would remember that, but eventually I decided that it's better to sort of pick off where we left off, because if he just kisses me like that what does that even mean? I watched his parents and they both stated that they were proud of us boys, serving the country and all, and that America would be safe under our guns and wings.

I felt guilty as Matt offered to go into town again for a drink, so as soon as we left the house we both lit our cigarettes. It felt like it would be dark, because it felt like we had slept to dinner time, but alas. It was sunny and warm enough for the current season.

I couldn't ask him if he loved me.

Or could I even utter such words out loud?

“Do you love me?”

“What kind of question is that, Al?” And he looks at me, to see me pale and ask it, a question which has weighed on my shoulders for years and seems to be like a pendulum, because I always come back to him. He looks away, inhaling and then down. “Of course I do.”

He looks back at me.

“Do you love me?” He ping-pongs the question. I nod before I speak, as if the letters would wobble in front of me. Matt doesn't even allow me to speak up and we continue walking under the trees which had grown over the years, just like we had and soon enough we'd get closer to the town. “But you're with another man.”

I can't throw the same back at him. I think he's single. And I am supposedly committed, but am I really when we had talked about us with other men? I think of Jamie briefly, because this is about me and Matt after all, so I discard my lover, as if he were a wedding ring. I feel like this conversation is slow, dreaded and far too painful, filled with different riddles where we hold hands and don't understand them at all in some kind of Wonderland.

“You still kissed me... knowing that.” I quickly pick up the pause.

“You're the one cheating behind his back.” He realizes how stingy that might sound. And takes the blame to only shift it onto me, making himself safe and glossy. “Sorry, that sounded far too harsh.”

I thought that I'd have the answer to that, but instead I just look down at my feet, exhaling the cigarette smoke, letting it mix with the feelings and I just think of the milkshake that I could get in town, but then maybe I should choose alcohol for once and switch subjects just for my own sake. Is Matt someone who I should talk commitment to? A man who had wanted a lady in every port? Was it somehow different because I was in a relationship with a man? Was it because word had gotten out that it was serious, since I had taken him out of a marriage? Was that the word out of the mouth? Was it really all that people had thought of me and were that a bad thing? But what did they really think of Jamie? I was surprised that word about Miles hadn't travelled. Maybe Matt saw me as heavily infidel because I had slept with him when I mentioned that I was into another man?

It had been so long ago.

Days come and they go, leaving nothing behind besides memories in an hour glass which somehow shows that death is coming but it seems to be taking forever and that is somehow no reason for alarm.

Matt looks at me, sadly, realizing that he had lost the topic and decided to ask me how was the ship, how was work and decided to leave it at that. We didn't kiss again.

We didn't kiss under the trees either. Just like I had imagined in my childhood.

I still didn't have much time to think. Me and Matt decided to act as if nothing had happened and he would avoid discussing Jamie all together, just eyeing me once when mom handed me a letter from a James Hince, who I said was a dear friend from the ship. I ripped open the letter, as I had read all the poems Jamie had given me, terrified that I had broken some code with Matt, so Jamie would've been angry or disappointed in me somehow. I read every word slowly, tracing his handwriting with my own fingers, as if I could feel him digging the pen in. I had cried that night because of two men.

Letters arrived late, but more than I had expected and I would reply to them right away, Matt with me in the post office and doing just one remark maybe I should've written to someone else to make it less suspicious, but then he looked around, to make sure we were alone besides the lady which was digging in a mail drawer, that perhaps I was right and we were immune.

After all, since we worked together, couldn't we have become close friends? It's always the close friendship which ends up being two guys fucking each other behind their wives' back only in our case, there was even a divorce involved and no wife on my end, besides a phony girlfriend photo I held just in case and with Lana holding her end of the bargain. I should tell her to start writing me letters far more often.

I went to bed every night with the mere thought that I should raise the subject again, no matter how hurt I was feeling and at least somehow manage to put it to rest, put it to peace. Matt dominated my dreams and I wondered what if I was in love with another Matt, with the Matt that was always there for me and wouldn't shy away from a subject and told me to go get whomever I had wanted. The Matt that I had kissed and slept with once. It all seemed like sole occasions, nearly ceremonial. By the time I finally decide that it's time to have the talk, it is a cold morning. I end up overdressing or maybe it's my anxiety rocking from side to side and I think of myself as a child on a rocking horse. I end up knocking on Matt's door very early, confused by the slow response time and I knock harder, until Matt's mom shows up on the doorstep all in tears. But she seems pleased to see me.

“Matt got called in earlier.” Were her first words through older tears, which I hadn't seen her cry. I take a step back, as if I were to fall down, but instead I just hold onto nothing, trying to keep my legs standing.

“Oh. Right.” She stares at me, wishing probably that her son had much more time with her than seeing me all these remaining days. But then Matt's shore leave had started earlier, maybe it was due for him already. Then her eyes shine up, recalling something. She turns back to get a letter from the window sill and she hands it to me.

Maybe I should've counted that Matt would be gone by now. I should've talked to him much earlier.

I don't know how to comfort her, but I do hug her and we hold onto each other. I wish during the hug, that she never finds out my feelings and the odd web between us. I don't think she would ever be able to stomach it since Matt had always shown interest in women, it was me who was the late bloomer to everyone. I had even shown the photo of Lana to all of our parents and an amused Matt, who just said that Lana was the perfect girl for me and that she does indeed miss me, but a certain time will come, he said, that we would both be reunited, possibly after the war.

The war had caused an eruption of talk, specifically what was going on in Britain, making summer's colour a popular blood red with disruptions of the living and dead. I'm sure the dead were shifting in their graves. But the topic was soon dropped, because all should be feared, if it's moving at a rapid speed and dominating everything on its way.

Matt and me discussed the war sometimes, but it was just something which was rapidly colouring our minds a dark colour and since we were navy, it would be a heavier war in our minds than combat, we wouldn't be out on the front, we'd be fighting everything in a different way, like we were trained and waiting for any second to be blown up while on the ships.

It was a different war, it was a waiting and more precise war.

I decided to go back home and turn on the radio just to listen what was going on, as if someone's death could somehow distract me and I decided to sit and listen, missing the reports which Commander Molko would tell us and now here I was, listening to the reports myself, hearing what was lost and how many lives we had lost.

I don't know why I decided to colour my worries with war, but maybe it was enough for me to cry under in my room.

I actually started thinking and wondering for once what would befall America and how the fuck would we get away from all of this. As much as I had no patriotism, I didn't want the lands to fall to Hitler and I didn't want anything gone like what was happening with Europe. And even if it felt like I would be doing nothing, it was better than just surviving a few days on the front. My mind was racing. How many days would one even survive on the front these days? I started crying even harder. Maybe this was all the fear I had been holding inside me and then I decided to rip open the letter, but my eyes were far too blurry to read it and I held it with trembling hands, seeing tears drip on it as I wanted to tear it to shreds and tell myself that one man is enough. No need to chase for a love which was long gone.

-

It's only fitting that in the honor of To Miles' 3rd anniversary I give To Miles a 3rd Nanowrimo shot. I actually wrote this quite a few days ago and I just didn't have the energy to post it and I was struggling to write, so I didn't get anything done. But with Nanowrimo rolling in, it's going to be much easier now to write because I'll simply have to. 

I get inspired a lot in the bad way if I watch something or read and then write right away, because my thoughts are crowded with impressions and whatnot. And that's how the first few paragraphs came to be because me and Callie watched Apocalypse Now and I was kind of left wanting much more, I probably expected it to be as good as Full Metal Jacket but I didn't get the bond, so yeah. But overall it just made me realize how interesting the Vietnam war was. Another weird thing is that we accidentally watched the extended version so that could've been it why I didn't really click with it so well. Who knows. But it still inspired me, so if you know what I'm talking about you'll find a reference. 

I kept pondering on how Alex would/could ask Matt when it came to whether Matt loved him or not and then, knowing Alex, I just realized that it would just be so straight forward so I went with it. 

I just kind of went forward and just kept sprinting and onwards, I'm really just trying to tell the story here and I'm excited to go further on with Nano, it's going to get exciting! Well, it already is, but I'll finally be revealing plots I've been dying to do for years!

If you enjoyed it, please tell me so and thank you

<3

Jamie  

To Miles 57

I wish I'd know what to do with him. I don't think of Matt much because I don't even want to converse to myself about it. I go to sleep with nothing but a haste kiss from Matt, as if we were very good friends, that a haste kiss on the lips would be some sort of handshake. I ponder far too much into the night of loves old and new, I fall asleep guiltily thinking that I should always be doing that to Jamie's touch.

The next day I wake up with the dream still lingering that I'm in school, somehow Matt has no idea of my crush and everything feels wrong with not wandering around a bunch of men whom I have a past with and have exchanged glances at least once and pondered if I could just feel their life trickle down my hands before I would utter his name. I turn around, still wishing that I could fall asleep in this old bedroom of mine, which I always visit on shore leave making mom and dad somehow happy. They never disrupt their schedule, making a pocket for me as if I had never left. I always wondered how come parents start playing such a small role in one's life. I wasn't one to think that I would be a father some day until I had discovered who I was, but if I were to think that I would even end up being a fatherly figure to anyone, would I be disappointed in knowing that the first years would be all I was given? And overall why do we give children so much credit when they just fade? Maybe it's just mine and me. I could barely recall the cards I'd be given on my birthday through out the years.

I loved them because that's what you're supposed to do.

Jamie doesn't speak much of his children, just like someone would avoid a divorce from someone who had believed in love for far too long, but sometimes he gets drunk and does and I wondered once before falling asleep how would I even be presented onwards, but I'd never be as easily explained as if he would've found another wife. And it was probably best that his children wouldn't know anyway, at this age I would barely know myself, so why would you try to understand someone else? And that someone would be your dad. I don't know how would I have reacted to find out that both my parents swung that way.

I wondered where did Alison's tale end and where did mine even start properly, where was it able to be told?

I turned around again and thought of Matt. What if he was an expired lover, where would he fit in and his whole blessing of me and Jamie? Were that really it after all the daydreaming and the one time sex we had? Was that all an empty echo of me screaming in the woods? Was I alone on that front-

I turned around again. I didn't want to think of war and how it would slowly be raised like a glass of wine to toast to peace which we're all clearly lacking and don't seem to ever achieve, like a bad expedition in a museum explaining what is wrong with our nation. I didn't want to think of it at all and I didn't want to come back and hear the sailors over powdered eggs say how America would surely survive Hitler and how we would destroy him in a day. I didn't want to hear any of it, patriotism long gone when I had discovered that I had just happened to be somehow queer in a way that the church would frown upon and would be something that I would never tell my parents and that's how the boat drifts from the shore.

Eventually I knew that I'd have to wake up and face breakfast and the sooner the better, not to disrupt anything. I wasn't sure that I'd be able to cook normal food again which wasn't disgusting and powdered or canned. I was positive that I would be overwhelmed by the scent and look of real food and how I'd be able to cook it. I ended up getting dressed in civilian clothes which I had left, which seemed odd because I would only touch them ever so brief.

Today wasn't the day when I'd even like to make any decisions and I hoped that I wouldn't get that in the form of food either. Thankfully, it was early enough, even in the weekend, to see my mom and dad be eating. They both seemed surprised to see me, as if they hadn't forgotten, but they still looked at me from head to toe, something going on in their heads about how much I had grown and it felt surreal to be somewhere far more spacious than a bunk bed and then progress downstairs to the rest of the house. It was in a way different from Jamie and Alison's house which was touched by children and Alison's obscure objects so it was weird to see two people who were hard working and had a son long gone in the navy. It was weird to be in a different looking home and soon enough the memory of the previous were erased. Mom offered to make me some eggs and I couldn't help but want to say how great that would be, but instead I felt shy in front of my own mother. As I waited I couldn't help but wonder again how much do parents drift and how many secrets I had held back away from them. I didn't know how they would feel about me being queer and that I had lured like a mermaid, men to their death-

I was a mermaid. Or was it a siren. I was a siren, only frankly I wasn't signing, maybe unless Carlos had convinced me once to be in his drag show. I wondered if in the next shore leave he would actually get some fabric instead of old bed sheets, because he had been complaining that we should expand our horizons clearly. My thoughts were a storm of their own. All of them mixing at sea.

But if I was a siren what would that make Jamie? A supernatural sailor who managed to breathe underwater?

I didn't ask those question to my parents and I was patiently waiting for a question which was something among the lines of have you ever managed to meet a nice girl on the shore and if so, where would you go from there? I had spoken to them briefly of Lana, in big fear that I might need something to confirm that photo I had held of both of us which was getting old and we would need retaking the next time we would meet. But then wouldn't that mean that sweethearts just held onto older and more older photos of each other? And I hoped that holding a photo of us both was alright. I ended up eating the eggs a bit too fast, too engulfed in the fact that food tasted like food really, and after a long period of eating things which were probably leftover mashed potatoes (or whatever the substance had been) from a month ago.

Mom kept asking me how has the navy been treating me and what was ahead, sort of tip toeing around war even if I could know that she most likely sat next to the radio every evening to hear a report and picture how it would all look like in all worst case scenarios. I would've done that as well if I had a child I cared about, no matter how close.

I think adolescence starts when you start holding secrets you can no longer tell, like Matt or my infatuation with Jack. Sometimes he would come back to me and I would recall how much I had lusted after that certain pilot, making me question how much I had wanted Matt. But I would tell myself even upon the another man's lips that I was melting because Matt was heterosexual and that had been it. I had no idea that there were some lingering thoughts. And now we were left as former lovers nearly and my own desire was asking me whether I had wanted to go further and if so, what had I wanted? How would it all be arranged and where would poor Jamie be? I heard of the sailors which Matt would speak of when we were growing up, who had so many girlfriends on each shore so that they would never meet and he would speak of them so fondly, so enviously, because he had wanted them, simply because he liked girls too much.

Did I want a guy on every shore? I guess I wouldn't mind the possibility but my love for Jamie and my desire to settle somehow with him, a desire Miles had once shared, was something which was new, shiny, foreign and was slowly creeping on my thoughts. I always thought that I would never manage with Alison and even now, how would that be pulled off? Maybe if we were close in ranks, but there was rank bias and an age difference. I drank my coffee quickly as well, as if I had wanted to grasp the day even if I knew that all I could buy would most likely be left behind besides a few books which could be squeezed into the coffin locker and somehow that would be sufficient. I should also bring Jamie some gift, which would be a bit smarter than wine. I could get him a novel of sorts, anything Russian I could get my hands on and I needed to guess something he hadn't read as well. I wasn't even sure that the selection would be that rich somewhere so small and away from a port.

I briefly wondered about the bars around, if I would ever have the guts to even approach another man with a sole intention that I really wouldn't want to travel around town. I suddenly felt ashamed of holding as many secrets as if I was holding a full deck of cards. I could've hung out around my parents but instead I decided that it would have been better if I made my way to town, as if the month would stroll fast and I was due Jamie a letter after the poems he had tucked in for me to read, not at once, but slowly and when I would be lonely. I hadn't touched them yet, remembering them now, as I had been far too immersed in the whole thought that I would be away from him for so long again. And this time no new resolution would be made, besides how much love gets stretched and torn but remains just as elastic with the new strains.

I went out to town, feeling like a kid again and I felt anxious, just browsing and wondering what to even do with Matt and maybe I should've called him over and enjoyed the day with him, but then maybe Jamie was right and I needed some recollection of my own, that I needed to look back and reflect. I had been building a web and I hadn't looked back at all. And overall I had been way too tired for anything, so my memory had been getting worse.

I felt like I should've just stayed back home in bed and curled there, reading all the poems, but instead it was like I wanted to torture myself from not reading them, as if all of a sudden I could forget that I had loved someone so dearly and for a while now. The stores just seemed the same only catching up with the latest trends which I had not seen and I peeked at the store fronts with dresses to see what I could get for Carlos, what he could've asked for and what could I do a mock for or actually be serious. I even had a kid bump into me with a slingshot, making me realize that I had probably stared far too long. I wondered who had done Karen's dresses and how she had managed to make them so pretty but then my attempt had been bed sheets and I barely tried.

I ended up emerging from the book store empty-handed after I had realized that they probably had the same that Jamie had on his bookshelf and for a long while I sat on the bench next to the drug store with an older woman, thinking what could I get him as a gift and maybe wine wouldn't even be such a big bad idea, even if it seemed highly predictable and was something which wouldn't last us both too long. I just wanted to give him something that he would keep longer than a wine bottle and nothing besides a new lighter or a cigarette holder came to mind as well, as I would recall my own mother saying how hard it is to choose a gift, let alone one for a man. It wasn't about it being for a man, but rather for someone I held dear.

I watched the older woman from the corner of my eye and the kid with the slingshot which was still running around with a friend, not really using the weapon, probably waiting while his mom or parents were in a store. Or maybe it was a sibling, who didn't look much like him. I wondered how were it to be a kid again, but there was far too much I enjoyed now, sex included, which I wouldn't give up and kind of being away from the idleness and holding everything in myself wasn't something I would look forward to again. I still would tell Matt a lot and he knew too much, but I didn't want to be alone again with my own thoughts and guilt.

So that depressing thought had to be shoved away. I left the bench, causing the old lady to look up at me. I decided that maybe I should check the lighters and whatnot, even if it didn't feel very thoughtful and I had given him a notebook already, which he had slowly and carefully started going through. Sometimes recently he would stay up a bit after I would fall asleep and I could hear him scribble, nearly in the dark, just something and I wondered until the hours would come where I had to wake up. Mostly he wrote in the day when he was done or while he was waiting for me, in breaks with reading, but recently even that had been taking away from his reading. Maybe he was on a boring chapter? I wasn't one to admit being a muse, but as I smiled slightly, looking at the reflective lighters in the shop.

Maybe I should've even brought Matt along and I wondered if it was even alright to drag a former lover-

Was he even a former lover? What was Matt anyway? I ended up going back home emptyhanded or rather going back home, stopping right before Matt's place and wondering how much would his own bedroom echo mine even if I had been in it numerous times over the few years. It would remain just like mine untouched by time, allowing our moms to hold everything the way it had frozen by the time we had decided to join the navy.

And even if I dragged Matt would've that been okay? Or was this a gift I should've chosen by myself? Of course it was, but I just felt lost and I could only imagine that Jamie would possibly get gift advice from Karen who would mock him horrendously, probably saying that he should get me a dildo or something to spice it up.

-

I've had another mental health leave. And I don't think I've taken a month off in a while, usually it's days and days, but anyway. It happened and I'm terribly sorry, I'm just so tired because I binged 1k just now. 

I've got good news (if you're reading this of course) I'll be doing To Miles for my Nanowrimo this year in honor of its 3 year anniversary and it's going to be my 3rd Nano with To Miles as well. I'll be honest I'm terribly anxious and tired xD But hey, it's going and it's happening! So in order to get ready I decided to get back into writing by writing this monster and I've got an outline planned out for Nano, so let's all sit and pray that I get to the end of part 1 of To Miles this Nano. A lot of things ahead and frankly, a lot of things finally ahead. 

This was mostly binging rather taking things from my life or inspirations to be honest and telling and letting Alex just talk about what's in his head rather than my own. 

I had a dream where no one knew my name and I would get called by my birth name, so that was an unpleasant dream, but I guess it's a regular nightmare for anyone trans. 

I really like some bits which are sort of left untold in To Miles like Jamie's children or the state where Alex lives and locations, it's funny because I really hated the whole thing in Russian literature as I would study it in school how they would leave it anonymous or call a city X and so on and it was very repetitive and I had an essay on it. I would really enjoy analysing things and overall you do a lot of essays in school. And somehow, I'm being hypoctrical by using it myself, because you can just make the location yours really. But in this case since it's sort of told from under Alex's pen and a memoir, it's more for protecting certain things and leaving some things untold, not really an unreliable narrator though. 

I mused on my own polyamory and that seeped through into the story. 

I hope you enjoyed it and are as excited as I am. Thank you for all your support.

If you enjoyed it please feel free to tell me so. 

<3

Jamie