“I told you, that wasn’t me. That was my issue. I would never hurt you, you know that.” He stepped back. “We should talk through it all, you know? Shouldn’t we? You always wanted to talk. Let’s talk. You got something to drink?” he walked down the short hall to look in the kitchen. I followed.
I realized I hadn’t said a word yet. When I did, it came out small. “Please leave.”
Ricky either didn’t hear or just blatantly ignored me. “Shit, yeah, let’s have a drink. What do you say?” He licked his lipsand rubbed his hands together. “Yeah, baby. I’m liking this. Let’s have a drink. Take the edge off. And then let’s make up. Like,reallymake up.” He stopped and turned to look at me. His left hand rubbed at his crotch. “It’s been weeks since anyone’s drained my balls. Fuck I could use your lips on my dick right now, baby. You wanna suck papi’s cock? Fuck me, I’m so hard thinking about how you fit all nine inches down that throat.” His other hand slipped beneath the waistline of his pants as he stroked himself.
I couldn’t breathe. All sense of security that I had fled like heat into the cold night.
Clearer, without stammering, I said, “Get out.” When silence passed, I repeated myself. “Get the fuck out, Ricky. I mean it. This was a mistake. You shouldn’t be here.”
He pulled his hand out of his pants. Both balled into fists. “Why do you wanna treat me like this? You fuckingtease. I said I’m sorry a thousand times. And now you wanna give me blue balls? You need to feel more sympathy for people with injuries like mine.”
My mouth dried up and my tongue felt as heavy as an iron paperweight. “Ricky, please leave.” My eyes darted to the kitchen and the wooden knife block that I almost never touched.
“Dammit!” Ricky bellowed. He slammed an open palm down on the kitchen countertop. The slap thundered in my small apartment as if a grenade had exploded. I leaped in place while my heart hammered like the kick-drum to a Norwegian black metal song.
“Is this how you wanna play this?” Ricky demanded. “This back-and-forth shit?” He slammed his hand again, another clap of thunder. Then, he balled his open palm into a fist and struck the countertop to articulate each of his next words. “What the fuck is wrong withyouuuuu?”
I held up my hands. “Ricky, you gotta keep it down. I haveneighbors.”
He hissed and rolled his eyes. “Yeah, like the time your landlord had to knock on the door after I fucked your brains out that one time? You didn’t mind screamingthen, now did you?”
“Yeah, and remember howyouhad to hide because you didn’t want to be recognized? You gonna do that again, Ricky, when someone comes to the door and sees you in a spat with your ex gay lover?”
Ricky went deadly quiet. He drew up to his full height and squared off his shoulders. His hands stayed balled into fists.
Then, “What the fuck is that? A threat?” Another beat of silence. He gave me an opportunity to answer but I didn’t take it. “You threatening me, Alex?”
“N-no. I’m just saying. If you start getting loud, someone might recognize you. A-and that’s, um, that’s not gonna work.”
His face went dark. Something in him definitively shifted. Gone was happy Ricky who loved to playfully tease, replaced by a sinister persona that wanted to see blood.
“Listen, you little fuckin’ bitch,” he growled, “I just poured my heart out to you and you stepped on it. Big fucking mistake.”
“You wanna talk about mistakes? You fuckinghit me,Ricky!” I screamed. “You hit me!”
“And I already told you, that was because of a brain injury. So it wasn’t really my fault, was it?”
I breathed so heavily I couldn’t hear myself think. The blood pounding in my ears nearly blocked out Ricky’s venomous voice. I said, “You hit me out of anger. Brain injury or not, that was crossing a line.Get out. Don’t ever text me again. I want you out of my life. That’s why I told you to call me. To tell you to leave me the hell alone.”
“Or what?”
Unsafe silence slithered and basked in the heat of our conversation.
Ricky repeated himself, his voice deeper, more menacing. “Or. What.”
“Just… just leave me alone, Ricky.” Thankfully, I was closer to the door. I walked the short distance down the hall and yanked the door open. “Keep yelling and someone is going to hear. And if you don’t leave,I’llstart yelling.”
He didn’t put up a fight. I had him cornered, up against the ropes. He strode easily toward me and I braced for another hit, but he breathed heavily through flared nostrils and passed by. I caught the passing whiff of his cologne, a sickening aroma that I knew would forever bring me nausea. I watched him go down the hall where he slammed his body into the horizontal door latch for the stairwell. I pushed the door closed, used every lock at my disposal, and sprinted to the kitchen window with a view of the parking. I watched Ricky climb into his cheap sports car, peel out of the lot, and nearly take out a minivan as he ran into traffic.
In a blur, I blocked his number on my phone. I don’t recall how long I spent packing a bag, but I had indiscriminately thrown clothes together and then my laptop. I was out the door and in my car in under five minutes.
Devin had given me a spare key to his apartment after things started going south with Ricky. He told me to use it if I ever needed to. I knew he was at tonight’s game and I wasn’t about to go to Rome’s and drag him into the middle of this.
Less than a half hour later I was inside Devin’s apartment and crashing on his couch. I shot him a text to let him know so he wouldn’t be surprised, then fully turned my phone off. I watched the game on his television.
The Riders lost, four to five, though I couldn’t recall a single noteworthy play. Even seeing Rome on the screen felt numb.
I couldn’t find the words when Devin eventually came home, but he coaxed them out of me.
