Clark… that’s definitely a harder story to tell. Not because I am shy about it but because I don’t understand why I react to him the way I do.

“College was supposed to be my rise to success. Ivy League, varsity, orchestra… But when I started my third year… School was all I had left. I couldn’t play anymore because of my knee, I had left the orchestra, my love life was going nowhere… and then came Clark.”

“So he was your savior?”

I smile but I don’t even bother to reply. We both know that Clark was no such thing. “I met Clark at a party.”

“No surprise there.”

I smile again. “No, I guess not. But it wasn’t a crazy party. It was a chilled gathering for someone’s birthday. We started talking and we ended up on the balcony and just spoke all night. I was smitten.”

“I get it. He is hot and he can be very charming.”

“He can. He asked me out again, and we met very casually a few times. We started having sex and then… I was spending more time at his place than mine, and… I don’t know. When I realized I was completely hooked to the man, we already had a weird co-dependent relationship.”

“How so?”

“I don’t know. It was weird. I needed his approval for everything. And it’s not something he forced on me in any way. It’s my brain that was craving his praise. Not that he was scarce with it either… I just want to make it very clear now that he has never been abusive in any way. Not even mentally. But my reactions to him were weird nonetheless. They still are now.”

“Would you still call it love?”

I take a moment to think about it. “Yes. Definitely. Because it wasn’t all weird. We had nice fluffy moments, he made me laugh, he supported me, he helped me work for school… He wasn’t the shitty boyfriend everyone thinks he was.”

“Your voice sounds like there is a ‘but’.”

“But I think he had a hard time noticing that I was different from him and I was too deep in those weird feelings to tell him otherwise. So he would very casually offer things that were out of my comfort zone like he was offering a walk in the park, and I would say yes. Every single time. Even when I knew for sure he would happily back down if I had said no.”

“Stuff like what?”

“Drugs. I didn’t do much but I did some. He would take some, ask me if I wanted some, and I’d say yes. Sex, too.” Scott’s eyes narrow. “It’s not like that. There wasn’t any sexual abuse. But… we handled our sex life like I was verse, which I’m not, we have invited other people in a couple of times which I’m really not a fan of, and we stopped using condoms before I was ready. Which is insane because I’m the one who asked him to stop using them after we got tested.”

“Andrew, I… don’t know what to say, actually. You are brushing all of this off really easily.”

“Because I can’t blame him. When he asked me what I liked in bed, I said ‘a bit of everything’, but really, how hard would it have been to say ‘I’m a bottom’? When he asked if a threesome was a fantasy of mine, one day in the living room when there was no pressure, how hard would it have been to say ‘no’? Or anything less committal than ‘absolutely’. And, more than anything, how hard would it have been to just keep my mouth shut when we got our test results back? Clark… could have handled some things better. No doubt. Like not offering me drugs. But other people have offered me drugs and I have always been able to set my limits. So this isn’t really on him. And although it’s super clear that some part of him enjoyed my submissive side, I think he would hate to know that any of it was against my will.”

It’s the first time I’ve put words on my relationship with Clark and I don’t expect Scott to get it. I don’t think I get it myself. But when I look at him, there is no judgment on his face. No pity, either.

“I’m sorry, that’s not the best love story, nor the hottest one. Plus, I probably don’t look very empowered right now.”

“I don’t know. You named all your flaws, you didn’t blame it on him but you didn’t glorify him either, you seem to have learned from it… That’s a form of empowerment.”

“I don’t know if I learned. The other night, he touched me and I was ready to follow him anywhere. And in that case, that meant a private lounge with drugs and probably even company.”

“But you walked away.”

“I still don’t understand how I am so weak when it comes to him.”

“He might have given you the attention you craved after breaking up with a boy you had wanted forever and your brain wasn’t ready to lose that. So you did everything you could to keep him, even subconsciously.”

“Maybe. But it didn’t work out that great because I caught him cheating.”

“You said before that Clark did not get that the two of you were different. Perhaps he didn’t see it that way. Maybe he didn’t think that hooking up with some guy was off-limit and would mean losing you.”

“Excuse me, are you trying to get us two back together?”

“Absolutely not, I think he was a bad, bad fit for you. But I want you to stop thinking that all boys walked away from you because you weren’t enough. Adam was a high school fling. Ben, from what you said, could have been yours if you had fought for him, and I’m not saying you should have done, and Clark… still talks about you. I know we haven’t brushed the D yet, no pun intended, but even he is coming back.”

I hear what he is saying, but my brain won’t accept this as fact. Because he doesn’t know me well enough to see it yet. But soon he will see all the ways I’m not enough.

“We’re not going to talk about Damian until you show me more skin,” I say, changing the subject.

“Fair enough. Okay, this next tattoo… it’s a piece that you sort of see everywhere now, but it was still original enough when I got it.”

“You don’t sound like you’re a fan of it.”

“Oh, no, I love it. The chick who did it was super funny. She was tiny but everyone was super scared of her for some reason, and she kept talking and laughing, which could have gotten me nervous, but she had the steadiest hand I’ve ever seen. Anyway.”

He takes off his jumper, then his t-shirt, my eyes slide up his stomach, and in the middle of his chest is a stag’s head looking right at me. The right half (for me) is extremely realistic, but the left half is really minimalist, simply made of a few lines and geometrical figures.

“Can I—” I don’t have time to finish the question that he comes to me and it’s his turn to kneel in front of the armchair. I brush the fur of the realistic half before tracing the lines of the other half, then coming back to the realistic eye, and my heart flutters like an idiot when the thought that I am touching Scott's heart crosses my mind. “Why a stag?” I ask to focus on anything but the butterflies threatening to wake up in my stomach.

“I like stags. I think they look cool. I know most people find predators more badass, but I’d take king of the forest over king of the jungle anytime.”

“I like it too.”

“At some point, you’re just being polite,” he comments.

“No, I’m not. And it is so different from the other two on your stomach but it somehow doesn’t clash.”

“Which is good because I don’t really have an easy and classy way to turn them into one coherent piece.”

“I still can’t believe that your back was your first tattoo. You’re a bit crazy, you know that?”

“You’re saying this but I know you want to touch it again, Mr. Wandering Fingers.”

I only now realize that my fingers are still tracing the tattoo. I take them off his skin like I’d been burnt and his usual adorable smile comes back on his face. The one that’s a weird mix of caring and cheeky. Like each time, I really want to kiss that smile.

But I’d rather have my platonic lover for a long time rather than include benefits in this and potentially lose it all.

“I’m really curious about your last tattoo.”

“Why? Because it means that I will have to lose the pants?”

“Partially,” I admit.

“But you know the deal, Andrew Scott,” he says standing up and putting his clothes back on. As he turns around, I can see his back tattoo for a couple of seconds and I am amazed at all the details I still have to discover on this. If he lets me stare at it again in the future, of course. “I’m not showing any skin if I don’t have a nice story first.”

“But this one is potentially unfinished.”

“It is finished. It might have a sequel, but the first volume was self-sufficient. Which is a good thing because it means that if it never gets a sequel, it still won’t leave a bitter unfinished aftertaste.”

I can’t help but smile. “I like that metaphor.”

“Great. Now tell me all about Damian and why we are considering giving him a second chance.”