Talker

Tate was looking over his shoulder as he went. His face
    was bare of powder, and Brian would always regret that. O f all the
    nights for Tate to have some extra protection from an indifferent
    world, this would have been the one.
    Brian worked that night. When he got home, the door was
    open a little, and there was a light on in the bathroom. F or a
    moment, Brian felt a profound sense of relief. Tate was back.
    Talker | Amy Lane
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    Screw the open door (like they had much to steal—even his laptop
    was severely out of date), at least he hadn’t spent the night with
    that guy.
    Then Brian heard the sounds from the bathroom. He knew the
    sound of Tate’s tears by now. Tate, for al his shields against the
    world, often wore his heart on his sleeve. This was different. This
    was tears and pain, and keeping the pain suppressed and keeping
    the tears tamped down in the chest and….
    “Tate? Tate… man, what’s wrong?”
    “Nothing.” The word was whispered.
    “Tate, I know your sounds now, okay? You’re not all right.”
    “I’m fine.”
    “Bullshit.” Brian was alarmed—truly alarmed. He didn’t sound
    right. He didn’t sound right at al .
    “Just go away, okay?”
    Brian was strong—even if he didn’t throw shot anymore, he
    stil worked out, just to keep his shoulder from locking up on him.
    He was not aware of how strong he was until he cracked the cheap
    lock on the doorknob with a vicious twist of his hand and
    shouldered open the door. Tate was naked, his hair down and
    limply wet around his shoulders. His skin was red and raw, like he’d
    been scrubbing himself until the water went cold and beyond. He
    was standing with his back to the mirror, trying to look at his own
    backside.
    A thin smear of blood mixed with the water from the shower; it
    pinkened one cheek and ran down the back of his thigh.
    Tate glared at Brian and was about to say “G o the fuck away!”
    or something like that when Brian did his first smart thing in the
    whole affair.
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    “Turn around,” he said gently. “Turn around and I’l clean you
    off. Don’t worry. I’ll be careful.”
    “Brian….”
    “Don’t worry,” Brian said, keeping his voice soft with a
    supreme effort. “I’m safe, remember?”
    A rape center was out of the question. F or one thing, Tate
    wouldn’t admit that he’d been raped. He’d wanted it, remember?
    But he’d asked the guy to wear a condom, and the guy must have
    forgotten, and he’d begged the guy for some lube or some spit and
    had been told that it felt better naked and rough, and when the guy
    (he no longer had a name) had been done, he’d laughed, smacked
    Tate on the ass, and told him it was al over, he could find his own
    way home.
    Brian had listened to the story, spil ed out as Tate bent over
    the seat of the toilet, as docile and exposed as a man had ever
    been. Brian had some antibiotic cream, and that helped stop the
    bleeding too. Touching Tate like this was not romantic. It wasn’t
    tender. It was not the things he’d dreamed at night for the past few
    months. It was certainly not what he’d longed for when he’d walked
    away from the faceless party encounters. It was as gentle and as
    impersonal as handling an infant with diaper rash, and it was one
    more little wound he doctored himself that night.
    He sat Tate down with a cup of hot chocolate and a pirated
    video of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog and ran across the street to
    an all night drugstore for a doughnut pil ow and witch hazel pads.
    His aunt had hemorrhoids—he remembered her shopping list.
    He came back and sat Tate down again, this time on the
    doughnut pil ow, and then sat close to him on the couch until Tate
    started laughing really hard at the part where Neil Patrick Harris
    sang commentary over the actual action.
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    He laughed until he burst into tears, and sobbed into Brian’s
    chest until he fell asleep.
    The next day, he wouldn’t mention it. Whenever Brian brought
    up the subject, he’d say, “Yeah, I know. Worst. Date. E ver.”
    They’d both had the day off of work and school. Usually, when
    they had the day off, they spent it doing laundry and watching
    videos or sometimes running together until their legs ached and
    they looked back and realized they’d done nearly twenty miles
    together. O nce a month or so, Brian would drag Tate to the nearby
    homeless shelter, and they’d volunteer in the soup kitchen. Tate
    was always welcome