“I’m sorry,” Elliot whispered in a tiny voice that trembled as if he were holding back a sob. “I always do this. I always let guys have what they want and push aside what I want. I can’t anymore. I’m not happy to share you, and that sucks so bad, because you told me that’s not the way you do things.”
Knight swallowed, completely stiff all over. “So what? You want me to change? To stop sleeping with girls?” he asked with more force than he intended.
Even the softness of the bed now seemed to prod at Knight with sharp blades, as if the whole world was against him.
“I want you for myself only, but I can’t force you. I don’t want to force you. But I can’t bend to something I don’t want either. I always have, and it’s always got me to a dead end. You told me to respect myself, and this arrangement won’t make me happy no matter how much love I have to give. No matter how good the sex is, or how much I know you care. We still want different things.” Elliot wouldn’t look at him, curled up in Knight’s embrace instead.
Knight exhaled, and each intake of breath felt as if he were carrying a tonne on top of his chest. “Yeah. You... you should respect yourself. I did say that. Pity you didn’t think of this sooner,” he said, physically unable to keep bitterness out of his voice. Didn’t he have the right to be angry? He’d grown fond of Elliot. He was imagining him as a permanent fixture of club life already. Would have been nice to know what Elliot thought of all this before Knight chose to suck his dick.
Elliot moved away, turning his back on Knight despite still being trapped in the straitjacket. He couldn’t even pull his pants up without Knight’s help. “Because I thought I could just go with it. I don’t even know how we got back together in the first place. I told you I wanted it all or nothing, and then we… what? Fell back into things.”
Knight rubbed his face. “So this is an ultimatum? Do I understand this right? It’s either monogamy or we’re done?”
Elliot curled his shoulders. “I’m not trying to blackmail you! Aren’t you giving me an ultimatum too?” He glanced at Knight with his reddened eye. “Aren’t you saying that we’re either sharing, or we’re done? I know I can’t change you, and that’s what’s breaking my heart.”
Knight pushed his fists into his eye sockets and let out a heavy groan. “Well, excuse my fucking attitude, but I never planned to kiss a guy, or date a guy, or give one a blowjob. You kinda chose a very bad moment for this.”
“I can’t choose right around you. I want you so much I disregard everything else, but I’ve been down this path so many times. I’m so, so sorry Knight. I should have known sooner. I should have told you I wasn’t happy with this.”
Knight raised his hands toward the ceiling and ended up dropping them to the bed on either side of him. This was not how he’d imagined the night of his reunion with Elliot after the stay in hospital.
“High time we untangled you from your other toxic relationship,” he said in the end, increasingly deflated.
Elliot spun around as fast as he could in the constricting clothes. “You’re nothing like him. Don’t say that. We’d be perfect together if our needs matched. But it wouldn’t be fair of me to block you from what you want. You’re not toxic. You’re the best boyfriend I’ve ever had.”
“Well, I can’t give you what you want. This makes me completely useless as your boyfriend. Let’s not lie to ourselves here,” Knight said, more uncomfortable by the second. His body was becoming hot and sluggish, and his stomach cramped as if he was about to be physically ill.
Elliot went silent, but instead of rolling away again, he crawled closer and put his head on Knight’s chest, making it even harder for Knight to breathe. Still, Knight wouldn’t push him away.
This was the worst.
Elliot was crying, and Knight could do nothing about the reason for it, because he was the reason. He couldn’t change his whole identity. He reached out to the nightstand and took a paper tissue, which he used to dry Elliot’s cheek. The heavy feeling in his chest was expanding, but he was a big boy. He could handle it.
“Stop it. At least we finally know where we stand on this.”
Elliot nodded vigorously, but from the look of it, he was biting the inside of his cheek. Knight exhaled. He wanted to kiss it all better. To hug Elliot and maybe sink into the tight heat of his body later, but he couldn’t do any of that anymore. He couldn’t pull Elliot into sex if he respected his decision. And he did, no matter how unhappy it made him.