Real Life(74)

“I didn’t mean that,” Miller says. “I didn’t mean it.” His voice is jagged and cold, like wet gravel against the side of a house. “I didn’t mean it.”

Wallace can taste blood in his mouth. Where he’s been dug out is still throbbing with heat, like a wound. He draws himself upright—a sharp pain cuts through him, and he doubles over, has to grip the counter to stay up on his feet.

“Goddamn, goddamn,” he says.

“Wallace,” Miller says, and he reaches out, touches Wallace’s hip, but Wallace jerks back from him, to the side, so they’re facing each other. Wallace holds on to the back of one of the chairs. Miller is in shadow, leaning toward him.

“It’s fine, I’m fine,” he says. All that courage is fleeing him, leaving nothing but its embers, inadequate to the task, to anything at all except facing Miller this way.

“I’m sorry,” Miller says. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I did that. I don’t know.”

“Because you’re a wolf,” Wallace says, nostrils flaring, trying to laugh but failing, landing on a kind of hitching sob. “Because you’re a fucking wolf.” He watches Miller’s stomach suck in and out, the way it kind of ripples when he breathes. Miller flexes his fist, and something corresponding in Wallace convulses. Was that the hand that had been inside him, then?

“Wallace,” Miller says, but he doesn’t have anything to say, that’s obvious. What is there to say after that, after such a violation? He should leave, Wallace thinks. One of them should leave now. But neither of them moves to leave, seems to be able to go. In the alley there is a horrible scraping sound as someone from the bar on the corner drags a trash can across the pavement. The noise swells and swells in the apartment until it overtakes the two of them. They’re watching each other this entire time, Miller’s eyes settled on Wallace, Wallace’s on Miller. They are exchanging looks, gazes, trying to read the silence of the other person as some people claim to be able to sense the energy in a room by its configuration of furniture. What, then, does Miller see in the set of Wallace’s jaw, the wetness in his eyes, the tension in his throat, where he is already bruising, the way he shifts his weight restlessly because he cannot be comfortable in his own skin now? What does Miller make of him, Wallace wonders. Can Miller see his hurt the way Wallace can see his? Seeing pain requires a correlate if you are selfish. Does Miller have a correlate for Wallace’s pain as it is now, arranged and waiting for a conduit into the outside world?

Cruelty, Wallace thinks, is really just the conduit of pain. It conveys pain from one place to another—from the place of highest concentration to the place of lowest concentration, in the same way heat flows. It is a delivery system, as in the way that certain viruses convey illness, disease, irreparable harm. They’re all infected with pain, hurting each other.

Wallace licks the warm blood from the corner of his mouth. Miller takes a step toward him. Wallace forces himself to stay still, which surprises Miller. They’re suddenly too close. Wallace can smell the scent of sex in the air now, the inside of himself, coming from Miller.

“I provoked you,” Wallace says.

“No, you didn’t,” Miller says. “You didn’t. I fucked up here. You didn’t.”

“I provoked you, and you reacted. It’s fine.”

“You didn’t, Wallace. Please stop saying that.”

“I provoked you, that’s all,” Wallace says, his voice coming out of his body but seeming to originate somewhere just behind and to the left of him. He realizes that the world is still hazy and gray to him, rippling at its edges, shifting like a flag in the wind. His balance is compromised. “I provoked you, and you reacted.”

“You didn’t provoke me, Wallace.” Miller grasps his shoulder and Wallace flinches, his head turning down. “Please, Wallace. I’m sorry.”

Wallace presses his mouth shut because he knows that he will simply repeat himself. He feels like one of those toys that utter a catchphrase when pressed: I provoked you, and you reacted. It’s fine. He has said he is fine so much this weekend that he no longer knows what it means. What would it mean to be fine at this moment? Particularly after having brought it on himself. He had brought it on himself, hadn’t he?

Miller looks very sorry. His eyes are sad, no longer hooded or shaded or full of mystery. They are clear to Wallace now, and shining with regret. Miller came here angry, bristling, on the edge of himself, but now he is soft, boyish, contrite. He is empty of his rage. Miller wraps his arms around Wallace, and Wallace lets him. He restrains that part of himself that wants to flinch and recoil, presses that part of himself flat and smooths it until he is perfectly still and pliant. Miller kisses his mouth and says again that he is sorry, so sorry for being this way, for hurting him. He kisses Wallace again and again on the mouth, and Wallace lets him, kisses him back, closes his eyes. He runs his fingers down Miller’s hair, smooths it, kisses the bridge of his nose and his cheeks. Miller says again and again that he is sorry, kisses Wallace’s throat and shoulder and collarbone, kisses him and pulls at his clothes, and they are undressing on the floor, sinking into each other.

When Miller enters him this time, Wallace breathes through the agony, through his discomfort. He remakes his face into a mask of pleasure. He sighs when Miller touches him, moans when Miller slides in and out of him, writhes when Miller kisses him again. But beneath the surface of his pleasure there is a vast, roiling rage.