Empty bed

I’ve been staying away from the stationPrague's main train station, where I spent a lot of time picking up boys. and spending most of my time alone. I have no desire to run into either one of the boys and have my emotions rekindled, in any direction, good or bad.

Most of my good friends — Steve, Laco, Ovi — are visiting Bucharest for several days, paid for and escorted by my sponsor, Chris-Tan. I could’ve gone with them if I had ever gotten my passport replaced.

My time is taken up by posting, eating, cleaning, reading — my second time through the Kinsey bio; my first time through Capote‘s In Cold Blood — and playing N20 on Laco’s PlayStation. Oh, and drinking as much beer as I can afford.

Sleeping alone is easier than I thought it would be. I wonder how it feels for Marek.

A couple days before we had the blow-up, he cornered me in the toilet while I was shaving. He had told me earlier that if I wanted to have sex with him that night then I had to get rid of the scruff. He was high and bouncing off the walls a bit.

“Rick, you know why I speak, ‘Rick, come, come?’”

He was referring to the time when I had been angry with him and had stalked out of the bedroom to sleep on the couch. 10 minutes later he had called me back in. A similar thing had happened recently with the roles reversed.

“You know why? Why I no sleep TV?”

His words for the sitting room where the TV and sofas are.

“No, Mark, I don’t know why.”

He paused, pulled his cap down and placed one finger to the side of his mouth.

“You know why?” he repeated.

I stopped shaving, looked at him and waited.

“Kolik měsíce you, me spát spolu?”

I didn’t know how long exactly we’d been sleeping together. He answered for me: 3 months. I didn’t think it was so much time, but I just shrugged, my razor in my hand and shaving gel all over my face.

“Proto,” he said; then paused, adjusting his cap and raising one finger in the air to make his point. That’s why.

“Proto I no like spát sam,” he finally declared, with a decisive shake of his head and an emphatic twist to his lips, as if disdaining and dismissing every night in his life he’d ever slept alone.

“I no like!” he said again, a little bit louder; and then hugged me.

Both arms around me, he ducked his head into my neck and nuzzled. No kissing. Marek just didn’t do that outside the bedroom, not even there by ourselves in the bathroom.

“Rick.”

He said, and stepped away from me.

My name the full-stop on the end of his confession.