#charles has a low sex drive and finds things like the sim and livestreaming more interesting

[cherrynika]

They’re watching The Great British Bake Off when Charles finally asks. Here we go, he thinks, there’s no turning back. 

“You’ve been masturbating in the shower. You did it just now.”

Sebastian narrows his eyes and looks at him, no longer in his happy state of enchantment watching granny number 2 bake her ‘famous Victoria sponge’. He puts down his little moleskine, where he had been jotting down her tips. Things are getting serious. Charles should be afraid. He feels his heart speed up, this is the good part.

“And how do you know this?” His German accent has almost been washed away by life in the paddock, but the arch tone keeps things interesting.

“You didn’t wash all the cum away and I felt it under my feet. It doesn’t feel like water.” He stops for a moment, he wants to see Sebastian’s reaction. 

“Well, I’ll be more thorough next time.” Sebastian loves awkwardness and embarrassment even if he insists he doesn’t so naturally he continues. “Is that all?” The notebook has been abandoned. Charles grabs the pen and caps it, the couch is upholstered in beautiful white linen, the old lady who rented the apartment to him had a long story about how her daughter had sewn the cushion covers herself. 

“I don’t want you to do that. I want to satisfy you. How can I satisfy you whenever I’m around?” 

The little wrinkle between Sebastian’s eyes wiggles around. He’s obviously trying to turn this oddly shaped idea around in his head. “Well you can’t. You’re not up for it when I want it. No, let me finish,” he says as Charles opens his mouth, “I can tell. You’re playing with the computer or the sim, and sometimes you pretend to sleep.” 

“I don’t pretend to sleep.”

“No you do, sometimes you’re lying in bed with your phone and when I come close you close your eyes and do this.” He rests his head on the back of the couch in a very fake impression of Charles sleeping, eyes closed and uneven deliberate breathing. Indeed it is obvious when someone is pretending to sleep. He used to do that when he wasn’t in the mood to play with Arthur on Sunday mornings. To his surprise Sebastian is smarter than Arthur was. “Just let me jerk off when I need to. We have sex twice a week if it’s a race weekend… I think that’s normal.” 

And on the off weeks--nothing. Hangs in the air. Charles considers. He’s perfectly happy on those weeks, using the sim, shopping at Le Metropole with Lorenzo, making up for lost time with all the pants and sneakers he could only admire as a boy, encouraging his friends to hit on strangers at the clubs. 

“What do you do when it’s not race week?” He’s not sure if he wants to know the answer. Sebastian had never asked him not to find other partners, in turn he felt like he couldn’t ask either. 

“Jerk off.” He’s turning red which is strange and new. They’ve seen each other in every stage of undress. Perhaps there are still parts of Sebastian on the inside that he’s never touched. “I’m going to jerk off anyway. Why does it bother you so much whether it’s because we’re not together or because you’re not in the mood?”

“But is it enough?” 

“Charles, I don’t know what you want to hear. Do I sit with my dildo beside me,” he waves in his Charles’ direction,  “and watch TV for an hour before asking it to go to bed, and put it inside me, and then prop it up on the pillow for a chat before I fall asleep? I don’t. And if you must know I prefer you. But it’s what it is. You’re in Monaco, I’m in Bern.”

“Doesn’t it bother you that we’re in Austria for the whole two weeks and we hardly…”

“No. Yes. It would be nice if we could… more. But I know you’re tired. Please just let me watch this. I’ll be fine.” He picks up the pen and notebook again. On TV they’ve moved on to the system administrator whose matcha chiffon is stubbornly failing to rise. 

Sebastian tries to take notes as the judges discuss the failings of the cake but he’s doing it half-heartedly as though he were thinking about something else. Charles knows this because he’s writing verbatim, as though his ear were connected to his hand, the way he did in briefings when he was upset, none of Mattia’s feedback actually connecting in his head, silent and wishing it were over. 

Tired isn’t how he’d describe himself. He strokes the space between them, the rough weave of the linen is just slightly unpleasant but he can’t touch Sebastian’s hand. He’s upset his balance and needs to let his internal gyroscope settle. 

The light and noise of the TV washes over them like a numbing balm. 

When they slide into bed he waits for Sebastian to touch his waist or the back of his neck but he doesn’t. It feels disappointing, like a play when the gun gets waved around but doesn’t go off. Something’s wrong.