✾ Water Lily ✾

{Gentle warning: NSFW ahead...}

"Was it because you're gay?" I blurted. Beau froze in the middle of drying the dish he was holding. He stared at me. 

"Huh?" he said. He raised one eyebrow really high and squinted at me. "Was what because I'm gay?"

"Your aunt. Is that why she didn't want you to live with them?" I said, squeaking the faucet off despite half the dishes still lying dirtied in the sink. 

Fuck it, I thought. Now was as good a time as any. Since I'd gotten home, Beau had been quiet. I felt like I couldn't talk to him, and I hated it. It was like we were so used to keeping our hearts in check, terrified of scaring each other away, that we forgot we even had hearts in the first place. They were just sitting there in the dark, beating angrily at their neglect. 

I just had to come out and say something, had to rip my heart out and show it to him even though it felt like doing so would inevitably end in me bleeding. 

"What brought this up?" he asked, finishing the plate. I watched his hands move. His fingers were so thin. The moment he set the plate down, I slid those thin fingers between mine. He smiled. "Your hands are soaking wet." 

I kissed his knuckles. "You can talk to me about it." 

His smile faded. He averted his eyes, instead staring at where our hands met. His fingers moved between mine playfully, falling into the gaps between them and hugging their curves. My hand felt warm despite the cold water. 

"Yeah. That's why," he confirmed. He was sad, but not in any obvious way. The emotion he slowly revealed to me was somewhere on the spectrum between shame and sorrow. I couldn't place where exactly...or maybe it changed from moment to moment. "My aunt told me that I was an abomination. Before mom died, she never said anything. I couldn't understand why she always acted so coldly towards me. I always assumed it was because she had a grudge against mom." 

Beau finally looked at me. His expression was bold, not broken. He held his head high. I stared at the spot where his elegant jawline dipped against his slender neck. His hair was getting long now. A few curls twisted down well past his ears, venturing farther than they ever had before. 

"Turns out, her grudge was against me," he continued, "but I'm lucky enough to be able to say that her words never really reached me. Not in any real way, at least. Never once did I believe her when she told me that my 'choice' is sinful or that my mother clearly must have done something wrong to raise such a boy."

"How come?" I asked. 

His hands froze once more. This time, he dropped my hand and crossed his arms over his chest. He leaned heavily against the counter. "Mom taught me better than to listen to people with closed minds." 

I closed my eyes, drawing my brow together. Emotion washed over me. My eyes ached suddenly, not with tears but with a mystery pain I hadn't ever felt before. Longing, I realized. Real, unsatisfiable longing. That's what I was feeling. Nothing as mundane as desire or lust or a little wish. It was something deeper, a cavernous hole in my life. It felt like somewhere along the way someone had stolen something from me, and I hadn't really noticed until it was too late.
Maybe, in that moment, the course of our reality drew dangerously close to a parallel one in which Vanessa Love Bryant was still alive. Because that's what I longed for so deeply it defied vocalization. I wanted more than anything to meet this woman, and the pain I felt at knowing that I'd never be able to do so made me feel like a long-forgotten child's toy. 

I felt Beau's hands on my chest and opened my eyes. He was looking at me with such tender concern. "What is it?" 

I shook my head. "I never got to meet her. To thank her. Or, to tell her how much I love you."

Beau immediately melted into ice cream soup on a summer day, a bit sad but carrying with him echoes of very real joy. His head thumped against my chest. I tangled my fingertips in the rogue curls at the back of his neck, the long ones that had only been there since we'd been truly together. 

"I hope that she knows how things turned out," I said. "That you're alright despite the world." 

"To spite the world," he said quietly. 

"Maybe she would know what I should say to you," I said. It felt a little bit like I'd taken a step closer to a perilous drop. My toes were already over the edge. 

"What?" Beau asked, raising his head. 

I sighed and touched his face, my fingertips barely tapping his temple. "Something's not right. You can feel it, too." 

Fear spread across Beau's face. He took a step back, shaking his head. "No, I don't feel anything like that." He started leaving the kitchen. 

"If that's true, why are you running away?" 

He stopped and turned to look at me. "I'm not running away. I'm just tired." 

"We have to talk about this, Beau," I said sternly. 

He scowled. "Don't use my name like that. I hate it." 

"Like what?"

"Like you're reading it from a grave stone," he said. 

I scratched my jaw anxiously. "Sorry. I didn't mean to." 

"I know." He stared at me. I could feel his intent eyes roaming the surface of my soul. He took a deep breath like he was preparing himself. "So...who is Jonah?" 

I hesitated. I knew I shouldn't have, but I did. And Beau noticed immediately. "He's a friend from my time in boarding school." 

"He's one of your portraits, isn't he?" Beau asked. "Is that why you didn't want to tell me about him?" 

"How do you even know about Jonah?" I asked, confused. I knew it was the wrong question. 

"He called you. Multiple times," Beau said. "But it doesn't really matter, does it?" 

Beau's voice was unnervingly level. He usually spoke with such vivacity, such variety in tone. When he was happy, he spoke like he was singing. Now, his sweet voice fell flat as if someone had sucked all the music out of him. As if I'd sucked it out. 

"No," I agreed. "It doesn't matter." 

"So why did you hesitate?"

I knew he'd noticed. "Because Jonah was different from the others." 

"Different how?" Beau asked. I didn't answer. Beau's eyes sparked dangerously. "Different how, Ren?" 

"I stayed with him longer. Weeks. Maybe months, I don't know. I didn't run away from him the way I did the others." I had to be honest. It was the only way. 

"That's all? Wasn't it the same with Liam?"

"Jonah is..." I could barely get the words out. I didn't want to look at Beau when I told him the truth, but I forced myself to anyway. "You remind me of him." 

Beau's expression shifted from shock to despair to fury in a matter of seconds. "So what, then? I'm just a replacement for some long lost love? I'm just convenient? You saw me on the roof and just had to have me, huh?" 

I stepped towards him, reaching for him, but he slapped me away. He took a step back. His hair rebelled valiantly around his face. His eyes were filled with tears, light reflecting off of them like flames. His cheeks were rosy with rage. His whole being was on fire, and it burned the deepest parts of me. 

"No, that's--I mean, yes, I had to have you, but it wasn't because of Jonah. I haven't thought about Jonah for years."

"So what was it, then? You've just got a hair fetish?" 

"No, Copp-" I realized using his nickname at that moment wouldn't support the point I was trying desperately to make. "Please don't hate me, Beau. I just meant that there's something similar about you two. You're both...kind of vulnerable." 

Beau looked horrified, his eyes wide and wild. It made me feel sick. I clutched my stomach. Hot bile rose in my throat. "Vulnerable. God, you're no better than my aunt. My mom dies, and you pop a hard on."

"Stop, Beau," I begged. 

"What even am I to you? You said you loved me, but what does your 'it' even look like? Do you even know what it means to love someone?"

"Please," I choked, pressing a hand to my mouth. I felt dizzy. 

"All I wanted was to be seen by you, but you won't even touch me!" 

"Copper, that's not-"

"We never should have gotten together!"

I couldn't hold it in any longer. His words were like poison. They broke down and shattered the meager excuse for a heart that beat inside me. I whirled around and vomited into the sink, my body contorting painfully. I choked on it, felt it burn my throat. The heat from his fury was too intense. I wasn't strong enough to withstand it. 

When I had nothing left in my stomach, I spat weakly and fell to my knees, clinging to the counter so I wouldn't topple over completely. I was breathing hard and crying. I'd never seen this side of Beau before. I felt guilty, like I'd drawn out this demonic anger from him, turned him into someone he wasn't. 

"Please," I breathed, my voice ragged. My throat ached and my mouth tasted terrible. 

I felt a gentle hand on my shoulder. "I'm sorry." His warm hand smoothed over my chest. "I'm sorry," he whispered against my ear. He sobbed. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean..."

His arms closed around me gently like he was afraid that if he held me too hard, he'd hurt me more. "I didn't mean any of it," he said weakly. "I don't know why I said it." 

I turned to look at him, watching his arms drop to his sides. He sat on the kitchen floor beside me with his head tilted back, his hair falling away from his face, and rivers of tears falling down his cheeks. He was shivering. 

"I'm scared that you don't really love me," Beau confessed. "Because you don't want to have sex. I thought that--maybe you were really--just forcing yourself. But I didn't want to make you--" He choked on his words. "--cry."

"It's ok," I said. I took his hand, realizing only as I did that mine were shaking. "If you didn't mean it-"

"I didn't," Beau said immediately. He squeezed my hand tightly, urgently. "I didn't mean it. I just got so angry when I thought about Jonah because you said we're the same but you had sex with him so what's wrong with me that you don't want-"

"That's not it, Copper. You're not the same. I don't love him." I took his face in my hands, wiping away his tears. It was no use. They kept coming. 

"But you've done it before. You're not a virgin. And I know what you said. I know. You're not ready. You're scared. But I don't get why. I don't get it. So it...in my head it's because I'm not enough." 

"Beau, you're beautiful," I said softly. "You're the sexiest fucking person I've ever met. It hurts me that I can't touch you." 

"But you can!" Beau shouted. His expression broke. In an alarmingly fluid maneuver, he pressed his slender body against mine. He swung his leg over me, sitting on my lap and grinding against me once. But fuck it was enough. My mind briefly went blank.

I swallowed. Beau grabbed my hair and tilted my face up towards him, looking into my eyes. "I'm tired of drifting apart from you." He pulled my head to the side, leaning down and pressing his lips to my neck. They were wet against my skin, his tongue warm and soft. I felt hot desire rising in me. Beau was like a furnace against me, an assault on my senses. 

He bit my ear lightly then licked it. My moan twisted into a pained half-laugh. I felt his touch pulse through me angrily, urgently. My entire body became hot. He was irresistible, and yet I sat there desperately resisting. 

"Please, just let me close to you," he said. "Let us have this." 

"It's not about--mm." His hands had found their way under my shirt and were now roaming freely across my chest. They devoured me, burning me deeply wherever they went. I was terrified and entranced. "My body is my--ah!" Beau rocked his hips again. "Beau!" I desperately grabbed his hands, stopping him before it could go any further. "Please, wait." 

He wilted. His tears started again. "You don't want me to touch you." 

"No, I do," I said, breathless still. "God, I do. Fuck, Copper, it's taking everything I have to tell you this. So listen." 

He nodded slowly. I fought the urge to shift my body just to feel that tiny pulse of pleasure course through me. I knew it would only distract me, though. "My body is...how I connect with the world. More than most people because for my entire life I rejected anything that went deeper. My--" Fuck, why the hell was I talking so much? My body was on fire. It was shouting at me to shut up and take Beau already, make him irreversibly mine. But the consequences... I shook my head, trying to clear my mind. I grabbed Beau's shoulders and pushed him away from me slightly so that I could breathe. 

"The minute my father pressed that first cigarette into my skin, I've never been the same. I shut down because someone I admired had suddenly become terrifying. And how do you live with that?" I swallowed hard. "All I could do was turn it all off. And I became obsessed with sex because it made me feel as close to alive as I could allow."

Beau looked sad. He just kept desperately pushing my hair from my face so he could look at me properly. 

"Copper," I breathed. "I loved your vulnerability because I recognized it in myself. The shattered emotions and the fear of feeling them all because it might break you." My voice broke and the jagged edge gave way to silence as I attempted to compose myself. "But you changed me. I... You made me feel again. And I fell in love with you despite how afraid I was. And the world became brighter and harder and painfully real. And I was able to paint again." 

I shook my head. "But I'm terrified because..." 

"Why?" Beau asked, his voice feathery. It tickled my skin and made me cry. "Why?"

"I'm scared because I don't know what it's like to have sex with someone I love." 

Beau's forehead fell against mine. He sighed deeply. "Neither do I, remember?" 

"But what if it's...what if I'm not-"

"You've always been alive, Ren," Beau said quietly. "Always. From the beginning, you showed me how to live again. A person's who's empty can't do that." Beau looked into my eyes. "So let me, Ren? Let me touch you?" 

The way he looked at me, his eyes wide, his brow taut, his lips pursed. He was begging me. Patiently. 

"I won't do anything you don't want," Beau said. "If it's too much, I'll stop, ok? Just tell me to, and I'll stop." He slowly slid off of my lap, sitting delicately between my legs, his hands on my thighs. "So please?" 

I covered my mouth with my hand. "I'm still terrified of you." 

"That's ok," he said, prying my hand away. He leaned forward and pressed a tiny kiss to my lips. "We can change that slowly." 

I felt so naked. Beau was looking at the ugliest, most vulnerable parts of me. But he wasn't disgusted. Only gentle admiration showed on his face. Despite the fact that I was shaking and crying in front of him, he still looked at me the same as he always had--his eyes shining and a small smile playing at his lips--like nothing had really changed, like he'd always seen me like this. I don't know why he looked at me with admiration. It was him who deserved it. He was the miracle, the one who, despite having no sexual experience, understood my fears and my weaknesses. How? How? 

I found myself nodding slowly. "Yeah," I said, touching his face. "Yeah, ok." 

His face lit up. "I can touch you?" 

"Mhm." 

"Are you sure?" 

I answered by shakily loosening the button of my jeans. Beau watched, his lashes nearly touching his cheeks. His eyes glistened. The shining tip of his tongue peaked between his lips. I took Beau's hand in mine, guiding it to where I ached for his touch. "Come on, Copper." 

I watched him flush all the way down to his collarbone. I touched his skin and silently thanked god that I could distinguish that subtle change in his skin tone. It used to be a mystery to me, the naturally light caramel color of his skin concealing his emotion from me. But I was so used to him now that I could easily tell when he was flushed and embarrassed.  And despite his confidence, he was still a virgin. 

Slowly, he unzipped my jeans further. My pulse raced. I'd never felt such a paralyzing concoction of fear and anticipation. But more than anything now, I was desperate for Beau to touch me. I watched his slender fingers move with intention, distracted by the boniness of his knuckles, the length of his fingers beside each other, and the roundness of his fingernails. 

But then he touched me. Even with the fabric of my boxers in the way, I flinched. My back pressed firmly into the cabinets behind me, the wood digging into my skin painfully. His fingers moved over the length of me, and the entirety of my attention, my consciousness, my being became bound up with the one spot where he touched me. I nearly stopped him but swallowed my fear.

With one curved finger, he pulled the fabric away. I blushed, staring at his hands. "Are you ok, Ren?" 

I nodded, looking at Beau. His breath was uneven. He inched closer to me until his head was pressed against my shoulder. I held the back of his neck to keep myself from floating into space. "I'm going to..." he started, raising his hand. 

"Yeah," I said, granting him permission to do what he wanted, what we both wanted. 

He lowered his hand. My grip on his neck tightened as soon as he touched me. I braced my body against the leg of our table, my muscles twitching. His hand was warm and gentle but it was driving me insane. 

"You're wet here already, Ren," Beau said quietly. My blood rushed in my ears. His hand pushed me farther, slick and sliding smoothly. 

"Sorry," I said for some reason. 

"Don't apologize," Beau said. "It's because of me, so...it makes me kind of happy." 

He was making my mind fuzzy. I gave up on maintaining any semblance of composure. When he started moving faster, I curled around him, holding him tightly. His soft curls tickled my cheek and I hid my face in them, kissing his head. 

"Is it ok?" he asked again. 

I could barely breathe now, much less speak. "St-ah... Stop--a-sking." I tilted my head and ran my teeth over the tip of his ear. He shivered and his hand shifted positions. Unexpectedly, my body decided to react even more strongly. My legs tightened, wrapping around him and pulling him closer to me. 

It was different. It was like nothing I'd ever experienced before. What I'd once have called the height of pleasure was a pale imitation beside this; it wasn't just where Beau touched me that I felt it. My heart beat thunderously in my chest, which was so painfully tight it felt good. I knew it was because I loved him. That was what made it so much more amazing, made me feel like I was losing my mind. 

He raised his head from my shoulder. "I want to watch you come," he said. 

I almost did just hearing him say those words. God, help me. Save me from this boy. 

"Fucki-ng." I grabbed his shirt, desperate for something to hold on to. "Why the hell--" ...are you so good at this? The terrifyingly sweet feeling of my body coming alive swelled in my stomach. I gasped, pulling hard on Beau's shirt. He watched me, his eyes steady but his skin flushed and his breathing uneven. As soon as he realized how close I was, his hand slowed down, his fingers touching me only enough to keep me on the edge, dangerously close to losing my sanity. "God, Beau. Please." 

"Your face is pink," Beau whispered. 

"Please."

"I love you, Ren." 

It was the last straw. I couldn't any longer. The feeling surged. All at once, it rushed me. Before I was ready. Before I realized that it was Beau's voice that finally brought me to climax. I was falling far and fast. My throat closed up at the sudden descent--a descent which paradoxically made me feel high--and I felt it all the way at the top of my head. My mind emptied. My muscles tensed and pleasure coursed through me, shooting down my thighs and up to my heart. My lips tingled for some reason, so I bit down hard. My voice escaped me, louder this time. It was the sound of release; physically, yes, but also something deeper than that. My mind felt at peace, and it made me want to cry. 

I panted, letting Beau slip out of my arms. He stood and ran the faucet for a moment, cleaning his hand. When he knelt beside me again, I eagerly pulled him close to me and held him tightly. 

"Thank you," I whispered, still feeling hot. And I meant it. I wondered if he understood what he'd just done, how he'd just smoothed down some of the painfully sharp trauma I carried with me. His tenderness told me he did. 

Beau embraced me. He sighed deeply as though he were just as satisfied as I was. "I'd kiss you but you threw up not ten minutes ago."

I laughed. The sound tumbled from me, bright and clear like it hadn't sounded for years. I looked at Beau, holding his face and stroking his cheeks with my thumbs. 

"Trust me, ok?" Beau said, a hint of that precious vulnerability in his eyes. 

I nodded and settled for kissing the very corner of his mouth. "I do."