CH 28

"Come in and sit down, would you like something to drink?" After the shoot was over, I declined Jonathan's offer to join us for dinner on the pretext that I was afraid your lover would be jealous, and took Chris, who said he had nowhere else to go, back to the small flat I had rented in Pala Alto.

"No...no need..." said Chris, who had been a bit of a handful from the moment he stepped into the small flat. "Oh...a glass of water would be great!"

I put down the bag I was carrying and looked at him and smiled, then turned and grabbed a glass and filled it with some water and handed it over. As I handed it to him, my hand holding the glass couldn't help but tremble. Because I realised that this cleaned glass was the one David had used earlier, and the one he had washed and put there. And I hadn't been able to handle it.

"Thanks." Chris, his ears red from nervousness, didn't notice that something was wrong with me. He deliberately looked away taking the cup from me with a stern face.

"So you signed up for Survivor?" Chris asked, still a little incredulous, as he sat down.

On the way back, I told him what I was going to do next. But he was still a little confused about me rolling over and trying to throw myself into another reality show, after all, modeling was my career in his opinion.

I shrugged and sat across from him, face to face with him at the small dining table. "That's right, didn't I drop out of the America's Next Top Model competition for personal reasons? So participating in Survivor is the next step for me."

"Why?!" Chris pursued stubbornly.

"For visibility I guess, and for that million dollar prize at the end of Survivor." I replied, either truthfully or falsely. "Don't worry, I'll be taking on some magazine print shoots and such in the near future too. But because of school, I probably won't be able to run runway shows around the world like you do."

Chris had signed with a not too bad agency after America's Next Top Model, even though he hadn't been able to sign with next modeling agency. Lately he's been running shows and doing print magazine photos with the resources in the hands of the agent who brought him in.

"But I've heard that survivors are hard..." said Chris, a little torn, "contestants come back losing dozens of pounds all over the place, and it's too bad for your health."

"But I'd love to have an experience like that." I smiled and brought my face closer to Chris, gazing up close at his icy blue irises. "A wilderness survival that you can't experience in the modern city, but comes with the social laws of hooking up. This excites me more than those extreme sports."

I flicked my head sideways to a frozen Chris's ear, "Didn't you come back with me wanting to try something you've never experienced before too? ..." the trailing voice trailed off into a hushed silence.

I don't know what's wrong with me, maybe it's the stress of David, or other things like starting school or meeting Neil Caffrey, but I suddenly want to tease Chris like this.

If it was the old me, I would have been afraid to go further for fear of hurting our feelings for each other. I would probably have been careful to test the waters and wait until I was sure what the other person meant before I would say it explicitly.

But now, because of the influence of Brian's personality traits, I could care less about the other person's feelings and selfishly and egotistically want things to go my way.

I could hear Chris's increasingly rapid and heavy breathing, a bead of sweat on his temples in what was clearly not a very hot day. His eyes were slightly closed, his lashes fluttering from the strain, and he brought his left hand up slowly to my face, brushing it against my jaw and the side of my neck.

I let out a low laugh, which caused his nervous movements to freeze, and I attached myself to pull his other hand over my waist and straddle him. "Maybe you're asking me if I often do the same to a lot of other men are you?" My question caused Chris's body to stiffen and his expression to clear.

I ignored his display of eagerness to explain and expertly used the strength of my own legs to support my body and keep my weight from falling completely on top of him. Then twisting and turning my body in a slow, sexually charged dance to the silent dance music in my head.

"I! ...I didn't mean that..." Chris pressed, looking up at me with wide eyes, then he saw what I was doing and his face instantly turned red and his eyes dulled, only to stare dully up at me straddling him from below.

"No er, Chris." I put my hands, which had been racked behind my head from the dance, on his shoulders and wrapped them around his neck. "At least in all these years, you're the first man to make me move for that."

The completely unexpected answer left Chris completely frozen, watching him blankly as I guided him. This feeling of taking the lead myself also lowered the panic in my mind slightly.

I wasn't lying. Because, it was also true that Chris was the first man in the past five years to make me move.

His personality seemed so innocent, yet he wasn't completely immaculate as a person. He allows me to take complete control when I'm with him and not be at the mercy of others. And yet not too easily put at the mercy of someone who would make me lose interest.

Since being reborn in Brian's body five years ago, my need for the sexual side of things had diminished a lot. Maybe it was because of the pervert who made me die and come back to life, that sexual assault before I died, or maybe it was Brian's original sexual orientation as a heterosexual. All in all, over the years I have unknowingly become somewhat sexually frigid.

I had no need for sex, not to mention a partner, and even doing it on my own rarely happened. Sometimes when I was busy with my part-time job, I wouldn't even think about it for 10 days or half a month.

But what happened with David brought me back to the accident that killed me. It was as if David's excitement had tipped the balance, and the feeling that I actually had feelings of gratitude and fear had washed away the shadows that had been deposited in my heart for almost five years, by breaking down and crying. This also opened up the senses throughout my body.

It was as if I had come back to life.

Before I knew it, we moved into the bedroom. I collapsed onto the bed with Chris in my arms. Chris straightened up on his knees on the bed and took off his shirt, and with a light smile on my lips I helped him unbutton it with one hand.

Chris took off his clothes and kept his eyes on my every move. He looked like a hungry young wolf, hunting for the first time. He was anxious but cautious, his guard was up and his eyes were full of desire.

He leaned over me, braced his hands on either side of my head and looked down at me from above.

I suddenly felt uncomfortable, and I wrinkled my brow and brushed myself out from under him, leaning back against the bed. I smiled awkwardly under Chris' puzzled and red-eyed gaze from impulse.

"Sorry, Chris..." I stuck my tongue out and licked my dry lips, "I think I might still be a little uncomfortable down there."

That was a lie. I used to be what could be considered a double plug, I suppose, but I'd much rather be a bottom who could just pose and wait to be waited on than a strenuous top.

But even though the shadow of the accident that killed me is fading. But nowadays, I can't easily put myself underneath sexually. The reflexive disgust that came back the moment Chris pressed up just now. Maybe there's still a lot of work to be done on my own mental detachment. But with this opportunity, maybe it would be a breakthrough then.

Chris was momentarily a little overwhelmed, and he sat there frozen with his mouth open for half a second. "I'm... sorry... I'm just used to it..." he glared red, then had a rush to reverse what he had just said, "No! I...I actually don't mind...being down there either..."

That last statement made his whole body go red, from the base of his ears to the bottom of his neck. The thoughts I had been put off for a moment by that shade were picked up again by the sight of Chris in this sweaty coyote form.

"I'm really sorry I didn't clear this with you beforehand," I smiled, reaching out to touch his head, flushed with some sweat. "But it would be nice if you didn't mind being down there. After all, you've only ever done it with girls before..."

I moved over and squeezed his shoulders, reversing the position and pinning him to the bed.

......

"Brian..." came Chris' low, husky voice out of nowhere. Interrupting my movements of lighting fires all over his body.

"Um, what?" My voice answered with a chuckle, and the foreplay with him was so enjoyable.

"Do you want to know what I'm thinking right now?" Chris didn't turn his head, just looked straight at the air in front of him.

Even though I was enjoying myself immensely, I saw that Chris seemed very serious in his tone. I stopped moving and straightened up, smiled and reached out to rub the few strands of blonde hair that were sticking out of his head, "Yeah, what's on your mind?"

I expected him to laugh and talk about how good I was at flirting, or deliberately criticise me for caressing him too stiffly and badly, not quite as skilled as he was at picking up girls. But he answered me with an answer that caught me off guard.

"I think I'm really stuck..." said Chris, finally turning his head to look at me, and he looked me straight in the eye no longer avoiding it. It seemed like all that long silence just now was to build up his courage to say the words. "I like you...no, I'm in love with you. Brian."

My hand stroking his hair paused, and I felt the smile drop from my face. I froze on the spot because of the heavy disappointment and sadness under Brian's eyes.

"Chris, your hair is probably going to need to be re-dyed. The roots have taken on their original colour..." I deliberately kept my mouth shut, but the urge and courage to do it all over again faded to nothing at this point.

I knew that I just couldn't be responsible for such a serious relationship right now, and when I couldn't make a commitment to him, maybe I'd better not mess with him anymore. I rolled over and got out of bed, picking up the clothes on the floor and pulling them on.

But Chris wasn't one to give up so easily, and he continued stubbornly, "Is all your attention to me just a courtesy? Brian, don't I stand a chance?"

This time it was my turn to look away and I felt my voice go a little hoarse, "Chris, you don't really know me right now. All you know is what I purposely acted like in the supermodel competition. Maybe I'm not really the right person for you."

"But! ...," Chris was about to say something else, but I then cut him off.

"Maybe I'm the one who got you turned on to men for the first time, but how do you know you're not just having a momentary craving for fresh excitement?" For the first time, I said something to Chris that deliberately misled him. "You're actually really into women, and you know that."

"But I really do! ..." shouted Chris, anxiously, in a high voice.

"Shhh..." and I pressed my index finger gently over his mouth to stop his words. "And I don't think I'm going to have a boyfriend for a while...or for a few years, for that matter. So, sorry about that...Chris."