I took a deep breath. I shivered, but I wasn’t cold; I was nervous as hell.

I stepped forth. The bathroom’s tiles were heated by the warm fog that escaped past the top of the shower.

Before I could think of anything else, my hand had slid the shower’s door open, and I was telling him things.

“You were right about the clothes.”

“I need to stop hiding from you.”

“I can’t change what I was born with, but I can change what I decide to do about it.”

“I don’t know why I made the problem of living in a generally closed-minded society our problem.”

“The labels they decide to give me have nothing to do with you or myself.”

“And I realized nothing was going to stop me from doing this but my own fears and insecurities.”

“I love you, David,” I wrapped my arms around his waist and pressed my chest to his back. “I love you, and I’m sorry it took so long for me to figure all this out.”

There was silence from him.

Silence, and the running of water pelting our naked bodies beneath the shower head.

I allowed my head to relax against his spine and closed my eyes.

I know we weren’t ultimately doing anything special, however, in this moment, I finally felt at peace. It was as if I was him, and he had become me, and we were the same.

“Wow,” David gasped. “That’s, really… It’s a great answer,” he said, as if he were a teacher praising me for some kind of science project I’d been working on for years.

“Thanks,” I muttered, as if I were his student.

Outside, the sound of an ambulance rushing past the building filled the room; its sirens soon faded away as quickly as they came. “So…” Since my ear was still pressed to his chest, I could hear him gulp. “What happens now?” David’s voice was filled with nerves. It reminded me of the first day we confessed to each other. “I mean… I’m really happy that you trust me more, but I still don’t want to do anything you might not—”

“David,” A frown took my features. “I am completely naked in the shower with you, and I am hugging you from behind. Did you think I was simply going to walk away after this?”

He paused, then shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe?”

I scoffed. “Do you want me to?”

“Only if you’d rather leave. This is… uh… kinda nice. I mean, everything is nice with you, but…” He let out an awkward laugh and scratched his head. “You know… it’s like I finally get to be a bit more intimate with you, and I… really like that. N-not because of the nudity—even if that’s kind of also super great—but because I know it means you trust me, and in really simple terms: it makes my heart beat really fast.”

“I know,” I nodded against him and smiled. “I can hear it.”

“Oh.” His shoulders tensed. “Right… Right.”

“Does that mean I should stay?”

“Please,” he whispered. And I don’t know why I had been so nervous, friend. It happened so naturally—even if things were awkward at first, they merely felt like one of our normal interactions in the end. It didn’t change his behavior towards me at all in the way that I had feared. In fact, it was quite the opposite. David seemed to be less on the edge of having a mental breakdown all the time, which led me to wonder if I hadn’t somehow evened out the playing field by doing what I did; though it was never my initial intention.

The first time I got to experience David’s confidence was actually during the end of that shower. “Hey, Alex?” At this point, I could tell it was not one of his normal ‘Hey, Alexs’, because his voice was a little lower than usual, and much more quiet, too.

“Yes, David?” I said.

“Can I turn around?” he asked me. “I can close my eyes if you want, I just… I wanted to know if I could, you know, kiss you… and stuff.”

I raised a brow. “Oh? What do you mean by and stuff?”

“I… I mean, um…” He gulped again. “Touching you?” His voice turned into a miserable squeak. “Wait! Wait! I didn’t mean down there, or up there, just… your wrists, maybe. You do it for me sometimes, and it always feels nice… and I want to show you, kinda, cause I want you to feel good, too… Uh, but if that’s not cool with you, then forget it, we don’t really have to—”

“Sure.”

Perhaps it was on reflex, but upon hearing this, David turned around. His eyes widened. He yelped. “Really?” he blurted. “You don’t mind?” It took him a moment before he realized what he had done. And when he looked at me for good this time, that’s when his face started to go red. I admit, he seemed so smitten that the heat which rose to my face was probably more than just an effect from the shower’s warmth.

For the instance of a second, we both parted our lips as if to say something, however, perhaps he, too, didn’t feel like speaking, for David’s hands were soon leading my wrists to the shower’s wall, as he pinned me against it and sought out my lips with his.

The feeling of having him in control was different, though not unwelcome. If I had to put a word on it, I would have associated this with trust. And he was right, it did feel great! Perhaps a tad awkward, too, when his erection pressed up against my hip-bone, but we laughed it off, as we always do.