Page 35 of Who The Hell Are You?

After what feels like endless time of swollen lips, beard burn from rubbing our cheeks together and my dick is about to explode in my jeans, we break apart gasping.

“Fuck, I love your mouth.” I breathe, rubbing my thumb along his bottom lip. His hands curl into my t-shirt and he drags me up to him for a drugging kiss, which has my head spinning. “So, is kissing a man everything you dreamed of?” I joke and we both laugh.

“It’s pretty epic. Five stars, would kiss here again.”

“I’m happy to be of service.”

To prove his point he kisses me, nipping at my bottom lip before sliding off my lap. I feel cold from the loss of his body, but he’s pressing up next to me in seconds, throwing a strong leg over me. I grab his leg that's sort of bent under him and position both over my lap, getting comfy into the sofa cushions, digging around for the remote.

“Want to watch a movie or do you have to get back for anything?” I ask, turning on the tv in the lounge. We all chipped in for it and subscriptions, but the gaming console underneath is our housemates Micah’s. It’s occasionally used late at night when he’s high and wants to play a game with dream-like landscapes and no real purpose but to frolic around. Mainly he uses a DS, always showing us his little cartoons with houses and farmlands he’s made. It’s cute, but not my thing.

Cass mumbles something, but I can’t make it out because his accent becomes thick and muffled. I raise my eyebrow and mid stretch he starts to laugh. Apologising, he repeats himself. I am not complaining, a Scottish accent is fucking hot.

“No, I’m good. My first class isn’t too early, we could meet at the gym again in the morning if you like?”

I nod, eager for any time I can spend with him. It’s hard to keep the satisfied dopey smile off my face as we snuggle together, flicking through streaming services for something we might both like. In the past few weeks we’ve spoken about so much, meaningful and nonsense, all important because it gives me more insight into the man that is Casper. He’s so intriguing and honestly I could hear him speak about anything, even the shit jobs on the farm he hates doing.

“We should watch Bullet Train! I’ve seen it, but if you haven’t, it’s so good. The cast is amazing.”

He shakes his head smiling, like an adorable happy puppy. “I haven’t! Stick it on.”

Clicking through to the film, I absentmindedly press play and throw the remote on the cushion beside him.

“Don’t worry, there’s gore but it’s in a humorous kinda-way. You’ll be fine, it’s not scary or anything.” I realise what I’ve said before I even finish speaking. My body tenses and I hope he doesn’t notice the moment I stop breathing, waiting for the dots to click in his head. Me; the real life Miles doesn’t know that Cass hates horror movies, especially gore. That knowledge belongs to masked Miles.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

The silence between us becomes so taut I can't even hear the beginning of the film start to play, over the thumping of my pulse. It’s throbbing in my ears and the fear I feel isn’t fun at all. Cassie had said no when I asked if he wanted me to take off the mask, but that was before I posted the video which he was clearly very pissed off about. Maybe because of his lack of wanting to unmask me, I really hadn’t thought about who he thought his masked ghost was. Did he think it was me? Would he want it to be me? I don’t dare look to my side to gauge if I’m in trouble, but the breath I’m holding stutters out of me when he sighs.

“Miles…Can I tell you something?”

I nearly squeak, coughing to clear my throat before I finally turn to look at him. He’s gone from happy puppy to lost lamb, the guilt on his face twisting something in my stomach and I sit up right.

“What’s wrong?”

He rubs at the back of his neck, “Nothing’s wrong, but I just want to be as transparent as possible with you, and if this is something you’re not ok with, I can shut it down. Well, I’m thinking of shutting it down anyway, but I just want to be honest with you because it’s hurting my brain.”

“Ok…”

“So when we were at the cafe and I said I’d explored some aspects of my sexuality, recently…” He swallows and I see him start to tug at the back of his hair.

Moving on instinct, I reach out and untangle his fingers from his curls, rubbing at the spot he was assaulting. His stress is palpable, but I’m so confused where this conversation is heading. I’m not clueless; I think he’s going to tell me about our recent fooling around, maybe leaving out the masked part. Yeah, it’s not everyone’s kink.

“It’s nothing serious, but since breaking up with Grace, I’ve done a few things. With a guy—just one guy, but it’s just sex.” As my mouth pops open his eyes bulge so wide I think they may pop out their sockets, “We’ve not had full on sex! Just other stuff. I don’t know, I overheard Grace asking you questions when I came back from the toilet, and it made me worry how you’d react if you found out I wasn’t as monogamous as you thought. I really like you Miles and I know this is very new, but I don’t want to fuck anything up.”

I know I need to play this very carefully. He’s laying everything out on a fragile table, and in other circumstances, if I wasn’t also the other guy he was fooling around with, I may feel hurt I wasn’t his only choice. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d ever find someone into this intense kink I’d unlocked the night I waited outside the wrong window, but I selfishly don’t want it to stop. He may be furious if he ever found out it was me all along, but at every opportunity I’d been prepared to take off the mask if he asked. The cards were always in his hand, ready to stop the entire thing or continue with the mystery hanging over our heads. Like I said, I’m pretty sure he’s referring to my masked self as the other man, so I can tell my possessive caveman brain to put down the club and dart around the truth.

I take his hands, rubbing circles into the tendon that connects his thumb to his index finger. “Cassie, we’ve only just started dating, sure—but we never spoke about being exclusive. As I told you, we’re taking it slow. Starting casually,” Lie. “I’ve had really shitty situationships in the past and I want to take this slow,” Partial lie; fuck no I don’t want to take it slow. “When I realised I was gay, I wish I’d taken the time to experiment and see what I liked, before dating. I’m a big boy and I don’t expect you to commit yourself to only me after just a few weeks of knowing each other.” If I had a therapist, I’m sure they’d agree I’m sounding very mature and wise right now. “We can see how things go between us, and you can find yourself. Figure out what you like. If we get more serious than obviously we’ll need to revisit this conversation.” Cass has dipped his head and is staring firmly at our connected hands, so I duck my head, giving him a small smile. “From what you’ve told me you’ve dived into relationships straight away, but this is a completely new experience. If you want to play around, I’m cool with that along as when you’re with me, I have your full attention.” As long as masked Miles is the only guy he wants to play around with, I can definitely be cool.

I am definitely going to hell for this…

Swallowing, he looks up through his eyelashes. “You don’t care if I have sex with other people?”

I feign a casual shrug, “I’m open, it’s fine. I can see this is bothering you as it's the second time we're discussing it, but I'm ok to just see where this goes with us. No commitments.” I’m open to being your only one for the rest of our lives until I descend down to the fiery pits.

“Will you have sex with other men?”

“No.” I don’t hesitate to answer.