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Lochlan doesn't know when it started. Maybe it's always been a part of him - this, the crawling feeling in his skin that has no name.
He remembers childhood summers: the freshly clipped grass between his bare toes, the cooling reprieve of water against sun-kissed skin as he and his siblings danced through the sprinklers, the air electric with their mirth. Time dripped slow like molasses back then, the microcosm of youth a peculiar, magical experience. The memories are hazy, worn out photographs, but he remembers looking at Saxon's broad smile, wide and shark-like even then, and feeling his insides lurch, contorting into a focal point like a magnifying glass to an ant. Such a hot, heady little thing. He paid it no mind; the Carolina sun could be merciless when it wanted to be.
There were other times, too, ones he couldn't blame on a sweltering summer day. Weekend nights spent watching R-rated movies they were far too young for, their knees knocking together every time Lochlan winced at an explosion of gore. Family dinners where Saxon teased Piper until she burned red in the face, and Saxon shot Lochlan a wink, like they're sharing a joke that only they know. Lochlan soaked in the attention like a flower craning toward the sun, flourishing under the warm, life-giving light. Evenings when Saxon returned home from high school basketball practice, skin glistening from the sheen of a stubborn sweat as he pulled Lochlan into a too-tight hug in greeting, playful like a puppy. The smell of him lingered, musky and earthy. Lochlan refused to shower on those nights, allowed the scent to seep into his pillow like perfume, one he breathed in deeply until his head spun.
Snippets of memory, each catalogued in the photo album of his life, tied together by that strange sensation. Slow but insistent, a creepy crawling up his legs into his gut, like a worm boring into an apple. Tender flesh chewed away by a creature with tiny, sharp teeth, leaving him hollow, aching in unfathomable ways. Such an incessant gnawing, such an emptiness carved around his fragile core.
Eaten away, but never rotten. Uncomfortable, but never abhorrent. It never occurred to him to feel that way, to associate the feeling with wrongness.
He never told anyone, though. The feeling, though not bad, isn't meant to be shared, discussed. He's allowed his own mysteries. His own secrets.
All these years later, and nothing has changed. He lives with the itchy crawling, that wriggling worm in his veins, and still does not know its name. Happiness? Idolatry? Possible labels, but none of them feel right. Ill-fitting, like outgrown clothes tucked away in a drawer, never to be worn again. He never frets over it. Some things in life simply cannot be categorized and filed away like pairs of socks.
That is, until Thailand.
It makes sense that things come to a head in Thailand. Getting away from it all allows you to see things in a new light, gives names to the shadows that the everyday life obscures.
Saxon is excited for the trip. He swings an arm around Lochlan's shoulders on the way to the airport, leaning in to whisper about all the "exotic pussy" waiting for them both. His breath tickles Lochlan's ear. He laughs dutifully, and absently scratches his arm.
Lochlan looks at girls sometimes, because that's what men do. That's what Saxon does, and he's a man. Girls are nice, he supposes, but when Saxon used to relay his lascivious college tales to him, Lochlan wasn't thinking about the big breasts in the story, but the hands that cupped them.
That itch again. Squirming caterpillar down his arm. Lochlan scratches it until the sensation calms, curls up in its cocoon and rests.
—-
It happens the first night in Thailand.
Saxon's made little sexual remarks all day - not unusual for him, he's always been the crude sort, but there's a new edge to them now. Like he's trying to press some kind of point into Lochlan, or perhaps test his reactions. The questions about his pornographic interests are a little much, but Lochlan's always been good at taking what Saxon gives him. Anything to have that blinding kilowatt smile grace him, making him feel special, wanted. Like he's not just a dumb kid brother, but something more.
Not that Saxon has ever called Lochlan dumb. Saxon is many things to Lochlan, but he's never mean. That's important to note.
You're smart and good-looking, Loch.
And then Saxon stands up.
Fit, tanned skin on display, Saxon walks like a Herculean god to the bathroom, shameless in his nudity, and Lochlan looks. Really looks, in a way he hasn't before, because why would he? But now, entranced, he wonders why he hasn’t done so sooner. Does Saxon want him to look? Yes, he must. When their eyes meet in the bathroom mirror, a tantalizing tension brews between them, a crevice cracking open in the earth, churning magma beneath.
Saxon closes the door. Lochlan doesn't stop staring. Beneath his skin, fire ants march in unison, their jaws dripping venom.
—-
Later, after Saxon returns to bed with a conspiratorial grin and comment about porn stars gagging on cock, Lochlan sneaks into the shower. He intends just to rinse off quickly, remove the skittering sensation of too many legs tapping against his skin so he can sleep more peacefully.
Instead, his mind wanders.
It doesn't surprise him that he gets hard. A stiff breeze can set him off on a good day, his teenager hormones being what they are, and he was just gifted the imagery of blowjobs. He takes himself in hand, tells himself he can do it, fast and quiet. As he strokes himself the way that he likes it, the voice in his head sounds suspiciously like Saxon - just think about the women on their knees, Lochy, so desperate for it, their mouths so hot -
But he isn't thinking about the women. God help him, but he isn't.
The fantasy contorts, a hall of mirrors distortion of flesh and light, molding itself in an ambiguous shape, something familiar, but not near enough. He remembers the way Saxon said bukkake, a word he didn't even think Saxon knew. The rough consonants, harsh against the throat. The quiet, lilting tease to it, almost a flirtation, and yes, that's what Lochlan is thinking about: his brother's smile, his brother's skin, his brother's ass, perky and tight and suddenly Lochlan's breath stutters, scratchy cockroach legs against his lungs -
and he comes like that, fist tight around his dick, imagining painting Saxon's ass with his come.
When he opens his eyes (when did he close them?), he's panting around the little spine-scratches in his lungs, his throat. He runs a thumb over the head of his spent cock, his other hand slapped against the shower wall to keep himself steady.
He knows it, then. Praying mantis sharp. A holy name for an insect that devours its mate, but perhaps there's holiness in that act, too. In hunger.
Yes, he realizes. He's hungry.
A name at last.
Names are dangerous. He remembers being ten and wanting to keep a stray dog, and his mother admonished him when he said that he named the dog Erie, like the lake. You can't name it, she said, because once you name it then it's yours.
Yes, he thinks. The buzzing little thing in his chest, his hornet nest heart. This hunger. Desire. It's his now.
—-
Saxon's asleep by the time Lochlan slips out of the bathroom.
The cold bed sheets are a welcome reprieve to his desire-warm skin, and he can't stop himself from grinning in the dark, elated to call it by its true name at last. So many years coinciding with this creature inside him, and finally he can know it, own it.
He curls on his side. In the dim lighting, he can just make out the muscular form of Saxon's bare back, the swell of his ass. Lochlan's heart chirps a steady song, the worm burrowing deeper, deeper. Deep like the way he wants to burrow inside Saxon, make a home inside him, where Lochlan and his desire will be safe.
Burrowed deep, but never rotten.
Never rotten.