Cracks in the Night
I don’t know what time it is. Late afternoon maybe, or already sliding into evening. The house is quiet except for the low hum of the fridge and the occasional car passing outside. I’m lying on my bed with the blinds half-drawn, trying to pretend yesterday didn’t happen.
It did.
I keep seeing flashes of it no matter how hard I try to push them away: the guard’s flashlight sweeping down the path, Josh’s dreamy grin, the way the kid looked when he was locked in that sleeper, the triangle, my face buried so deep between his thighs I could barely breathe. And then… me. Coming like that. Just from the hold. No hands, no nothing. Just the pressure and the heat and the overwhelming closeness.
I feel sick. I feel alive.
I tried Whitman first — Leaves of Grass. Pulled out the old paperback I’ve had since grade ten, the one with the cracked spine. I thought maybe “I Sing the Body Electric” or the barbaric yawp would steady me. It usually does. The words are big and raw and beautiful, the kind of thing that makes me feel less alone in my own skin. But tonight they felt too loud, too much. Every line about bodies and touch and electric blood just made my stomach flip harder. I closed the book after three pages and shoved it under the pillow like it had bitten me.
So I did something worse.
I opened my laptop and searched for Henry Danger. Found a random episode from season two, the one where they’re stuck in the Man Cave and everything keeps exploding. I used to watch this show on Christmas break when the marathon was on. I’d binge for hours, telling myself it was just dumb fun. But even then there was something about it that hit me low in the gut — the goofy energy, the bright colours, the way Henry would get manhandled and then flip the script.
Now it feels different.
The opening montage started and that stupid, stirring theme music hit me like a drug. I got the same little rush I always do, almost religious, like something inside my chest is lifting. Then Henry yelled “Up the tube!” and I actually flinched. Because now that line doesn’t just mean the chute in the Man Cave. It means something darker. Something Josh said he wanted to do to me. Something I told him I wasn’t ready for… but I didn’t say no.
And the guard — Landon — he looked like Kid Danger last night. Goofy uniform, flashlight like a prop, that wiry build. I dug out my old yearbooks after lunch. There he was in grade eleven, third row of the wrestling team, skinny arms, shy half-smile, holding a little trophy. I stared at the picture for way too long. The same guy who put Josh in a rear-naked choke and almost put him out. The same guy whose body felt surprisingly strong when we rolled. Hot. Unexpected. Dangerous in its own way.
I must be sick.
I’ve always been like this with wrestling. Ever since I was a kid and my friend and I started roughhousing after school. He was smaller than me but I’d let him get the advantage anyway. I’d pretend to fight when he got me in a headscissors, pretending to be embarrassed, telling him “Damn you, I’m gonna kill you when I get out,” while secretly hoping he’d squeeze harder. One time on his paper route we ended up wrestling right on some stranger’s lawn. He locked me in tight that day, really squeezing like he meant it. It hurt, but I still didn’t want him to let go. We never talked about it again. The whole thing felt too big, too secret.
Until Josh.
With him it’s warmer. Safer. More dangerous at the same time. Every time he’s had me in those thighs — on the grass, in the clearing, last night with my face pressed right against him — it floods me with the old feeling, but bigger. Deeper. Like I’ve been waiting my whole life to be captured like that by someone who actually sees me.
And then he slid his hand down. Palm on my rear. Pressing just enough. I told him I liked it. I said the words out loud. That might be the finest moment of my life so far, which says something terrifying about me.
Now he wants me in his basement. His bat cave. His tube.
I need therapy. I need… something only Josh can give me.
Or maybe Landon too, in some twisted way my brain keeps circling back to.
God help my soul.
I closed the laptop. The room felt too quiet. Outside the window the late light was turning gold over the lake. Somewhere out there, probably right now, a coyote was loping along the edge of the marsh, thin and wary, its eyes catching the last of the sun.
I don’t know what I’m doing anymore.
I only know I’m not ready to stop.
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