#jamie marshall

[geekcavepodcast]

Safe House Trailer

Six government agents are trapped in a safe house after a terrorist attack in LA. They will have to try to survive the terrorists, but also a potential traitor among them.

Safe House is directed by Jamie Marshall from a screenplay by Leon Langford. The film stars Lucien Laviscount, Hannah John-Kamen, Lewis Tan, Ethan Embry, Michael Bradway, Brett Cullen, Brian Van Holt, and Holt McCallany.

Safe House releases to theaters on October 31, 2025.

[fatherbooker]

—

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐅𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐲 /ᴄᴜʟᴛ/

[omurokur]

Yeni yazı: İntikam, The Foreigner

Bu yazı

http://www.omurokur.com/2017/12/intikam-the-foreigner/ adresinde yayınlanmıştır.

İntikam, The Foreigner

Kaybedecek bir şeyi olmayanların şerrinden korkun.

Jackie Chan ve Pierce Brosnan gibi ünlü iki başrol oyuncusunun rol aldığı bu film beklenti çıtasını çok yukarılara taşıdığından filmin sonunda tatmin olmamanızdan daha doğal bir şey olamaz. Hele ki Uzak Doğu dövüş sanatları ustası Jackie Chan’ın, eski filmlerinde sergilediği performansa bakınca yanlış filmde oynadığı kanısına varıyorsunuz. Para için gelişigüzel seçilmiş bir yapım gibi.

Pierce Brosnan ise rolüne cuk diye oturmuş. Bir yandan koltuğu için her türlü şeyi yapabilecek içten pazarlıklı ve ihanet eden, diğer yandan da gözünün önündeki aldatılmayı görmeyen bir adamı  çok güzel canlandırmış.

Süresinin yeterince uzun olmasına rağmen, filmin, bazı sahneleri arasında zaman zaman olması gereken bağlantının kopması, seyir zevkini düşürmektedir.

Maide suresi 32. Ayette Allah buyurmaktadır ki: “Kim, bir insanı, bir can karşılığı veya yeryüzünde bir bozgunculuk çıkarmak karşılığı olmaksızın öldürürse, o sanki bütün insanları öldürmüştür. Her kim de birini (hayatını kurtararak) yaşatırsa, sanki bütün insanları yaşatmıştır.”

Bir zamanlar ülkemizin çeşitli yerlerinde, hemen hemen her gün  patlayan bombalar yüzünden, kolluk kuvvetlerimizden olsun, sivil vatandaşlarımızdan olsun onlarca şehit veriyorduk… İnşallah bu filmde olduğu gibi iktidar partisi kaostan beslenmeye çalışmamıştır.

Benim Puanım: 6 / 10

IMDB Puanı: 7,1 / 10

Sinemalar.com Puanı: 8,5 / 10

Vizyon Tarihi: 8 Aralık 2017

Yapımı : 2017 – ABD

Tür : Aksiyon , Gerilim

Süre: 114 Dak.

Yönetmen : Martin Campbell

Oyuncular : Jackie Chan, Pierce Brosnan, Katie Leung, Jorge Leon Martinez, Lasco Atkins

Senaryo : Stephen Leather, David Marconi

Yapımcı : Jamie Marshall, Wayne Marc Godfrey

[noshametoask-blog]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Chapters: 1/12 Fandom: Shame (2011) Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Brandon Sullivan/Jamie Marshall Characters: Brandon Sullivan, Jamie Marshall Additional Tags: Sex Addiction, Hamsters, baths, sexlet, Branlet, Jamieling, Cats, Angst, Childhood Trauma, Community: mcfassy Series: Part 1 of Shame!mcfassy AU Summary:

Sequel to Prince of rain. Against the current, Brandon and Jamie somehow ended up staying together. Neither of them, however, has any greater idea of what exactly "together" means. And so they have quite a journey ahead of them, one which will take them to places neither of them wished they knew existed, but which will also allow them to become more than they thought they could be.

[movielala]

New Poster just added for Dirty Lies Dec 31, 2016 directed by Jamie Marshall, with stars Beau Knapp Fernando Chien Steve Wilder Kevin Brewerton Carlos Javier Castillo Click on the photo to see more cool stuff...

[noshametoask-blog]

Dataset for starters

Warning: spoilers ahead! 

1. What’s Shame? 

It’s a 2011 psychological drama movie by a British director Steve McQueen. Starring Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan, it tells the story of Brandon Sullivan, a seemingly high-functioning sex addict. He’s well-off, he has a successful career and an exceptional way with women, and at first glance he looks pretty satisfied with his life. In fact, however, he numbs himself to any and all emotion, and he shuns intimacy. 

When one day Sissy, Brandon’s neurotic little sister, arrives unannounced at his apartment, unwittingly she brings along the ghosts of their childhood. This sends Brandon onto a downward spiral. His compulsions spin out of control, and he suddenly finds himself on the verge of losing his job, his comfortable, predictable life, and any amounts of self-esteem that he still has left.

2. What’s Prince of rain?

It’s a Shame fanfic which depicts the beginning of a relationship between Brandon and OC Jamie Marshall. We have created their relationship and the whole background universe through role-play. We have also specified many aspects of Brandon’s backstory which in the original movie are either only implied or not mentioned at all. 

That being said, the story in Prince of rain ends quite early into their relationship, and many details we have worked out together didn’t make it into the fanfic, as it would make no sense to reveal them at that point. So, one of the reasons we started this blog is actually to brag about how we know things about Brandon that even the screenwriters of Shame didn’t conceive of. (Or maybe they did, but whatever.)

3. So what are Brandon and Jamie about?

When he meets Jamie, Brandon is in the deepest shit of his lifetime (and given what he’s been through, that certainly means a lot). He can’t control his addiction anymore, but he’s also not yet at the stage to even admit he has a problem and needs help. His past is haunting him, and that’s precisely what he needs his addiction for - when he’s not acting out, he’s left alone thinking and remembering. His manipulative boss has just learnt about his addiction and can do about that whatever he pleases. Brandon is essentially cornered: he has no one to turn to and no one to rely on, and even if he did, he wouldn’t know how to do that, because throughout his life he has learnt better than to trust anyone. Oh, not to mention he has almost driven his sister to suicide and now he can’t imagine himself ever living again in that apartment where she slit her wrists. 

Stubborn in cherishing his own hurt and holding a passive-aggresive grudge against the whole world after his previous committed relationship ended a few years before, Jamie picks Brandon from the street and takes care of him like he would with a stray dog. He falls in love with Brandon easily, because he instantly feels a connection between the two of them. Intuitively, Jamie knows they have in common their loneliness and a sense of a desperate disappointment in their lives. He lets Brandon stay with him, at first naively assuming that by offering him nurturing and care (in short: by making himself needed) he will make Brandon love him back. It soon turns out it’s out of question, but Jamie chooses to stick with Brandon nevertheless. 

Soon, the truth about the nature of Brandon’s mysterious “issues” has revealed itself. While Brandon fiercely digs his heels into denial, Jamie decides he will nevertheless take on that single-handed fight and make an investment into fixing Brandon. If this sounds like a perfect setup for codependency - well, it is. Especially since in the midst of all this Jamie has somehow forgotten that he himself still needs a decent amount of fixing.

The prospects for the two of them have thus looked bleak right from the start. Admittedly, they have soon developed deep and honest feelings for each other, appreciating one another for what they are and not for what they pretend to be, which so far hasn’t too often been the case in the lives of either of them. Still, they really have a long uphill way to go. It will take both of them a lot of growth and risk-taking before they can build something that will work and last.

[throwmetomorrow]

prince of rain pt. 4

Link to Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3

See also a music video that I made about Brandon and Jaimie.

This is a multichapter fanfic to the movie Shame starring Michael Fassbender. It is essentially set after the movie, but it also inserts some alteratons to the final part of the film.

My intention is to make this story work on as many levels as possible. It’s obviously targeted mainly at the cherik/ mcfassy fandom, but all kinds of readers are welcomed, including those who haven’t seen the original movie (the protagonist, Brandon, has been depicted in my story through my character’s eyes, so you learn everything from scratch anyway).

Rating: NC-17 for explicit sexual content and some disturbing themes (most chapters should be around R, actually)

Warnings: angst; OC-protagonist; spoilers for the movie Shame 

Summary: Jamie Marshall is a thirty-year old New York veterinarian. He’s single, he loves his job, and since three years he’s been in the “relationship recovery mode”, much to his many friends’ dismay. One evening, on his way back from a club, he experienced something which felt like a life-changing encounter.

Special thanks to my role-play Brandon, the author of everything Brandon says and does outside the movie script, and the unquestionable king of all Fassy incarnations and all things Fassy in this relationship.

Jamie woke up around six o’clock. He lifted his upper body on the elbow and sleepily brushed back his ruffled semi-long hair with his fingers. He winced, feeling expectedly sore in his lower back. Slowly, his consciousness began to recall why it was that he’d ended up on the couch, feeling so strained and burnt out.

He was sure he had been dreaming of something, possibly a nightmare, telling from the tension in his body and the haziness inside his head. Luckily, he couldn’t remember anything. The bad part about it, though, was that the moment that sleep had begun to let go of his hold on him, while still drowning in the thick fog of half-asleep, he had this very believable vision that he was lying on this very couch in Jessie’s embrace, with his head on his lap, the way he had always used to. And that he’d opened his mouth, trying to tell him You know what, I’ve just had this crazy dream, it really freaked me out, makes me wonder if I’m alright? … I met this strange guy in a club and let him fuck me twice, but he didn’t enjoy it at all and couldn’t even come, you think there could be something wrong with me? But then he hesitated and instead just wanted to ask Why the fuck do you feel so cold, Jess?

And it was then that consciousness entered the picture sharply to make Jamie realize that Jessie wasn’t there. That he was trying to talk to a shadow. Seriously, Jamie M., you’re so messed up. Jessie’s been gone for three years. He’s gone because he couldn’t stand you anymore. And also because he fell in love with an almost-underage Latino boy model, but that petty little detail really shouldn’t have mattered anything to you, should it.

Jamie yawned, stretched his body and bravely decided to pull himself together so as to take some constructive action, before he’d drown in the endless ocean of brooding and self-pity. He still had his guest behind the closed door of his bedroom, and as long as he was there, it would be unwise and selfish of Jamie to carry on with his dark fantasies on the misery of his own life.

And besides, brooding and self-pity would definitely be a lame way to start a day, no matter the circumstances.

And so Jamie made this heroic effort and got up. He looked for his cats, said hello to them, gave them some strokes and ear scratches, got rubbed back (at least something warm did live in this apartment, which was good news… naturally there were also the hamsters, but Jamie kept their cage in the bedroom, at the moment occupied by the stranger, so they were temporarily unavailable), and fed them. Then he trudged to the bathroom and took a shower. Warm streams of water massaged his skin with the most gentle touch he’d experienced in these couple of hours, making his stale blood run a little faster. He tried not to think about how lonely this setting felt, the puffs of steam circling around his naked form never quite able to replace anyhow a tender embrace of a fellow human being.

After a couple of minutes Jamie managed to convince himself out of the warm cuddle of his shower cabin, and he followed his normal everyday routine. He brushed his teeth, he shaved his face smooth, he put some underpants and jeans on, and grabbed a coffee which he drank with his cats on his lap so that the silence wouldn’t kill him.

He peeked anxiously in the direction of his bedroom, but no signs of life were audible just yet from behind the door. Jamie moved his cats aside and boiled some more water to make another coffee, and prepared some toasts for breakfast. Before he knew it, the clock pointed to quarter to seven. Still not even a rustle resounded from the bedroom. Jamie sighed. Man, that was going to be awkward.

As if to earn some more time for his guest and give him a chance to get up on his own, Jamie  put on a shirt in really apathetic movements. Still not exactly rushing the things, he also fixed his collar and cuffs, he began to fasten the buttons, and only then did he decide to approach the door, rather reluctantly.

He knocked, but there was no answer. Jamie wasn’t an accomplished mind-reader (even though he sometimes liked to flatter himself with the idea, he was aware of how far away from the reality it was), so he couldn’t decide if that was supposed to mean yes, no or I’m asleep, so fuck off. And so he had to carry on in a more definite manner.

“Um… Hi there, I’m really sorry, but I have to get to work on time, so we’re going to have to leave in some twenty minutes.” He paused attentively for a while, let out a silent sigh of relief at the sound of bed screeching under a body movement, and added in a more cheerful tone: “You can go and take a shower if you’d like. Your coffee and breakfast are waiting for you”.

Then he withdrew to the kitchen annex to finish the breakfast preparations; totally unsuspecting, he almost dropped a plate full of toasts with jam and peanut butter when he saw the man emerging from the room stark naked. Even though before Jamie had made sure to collect the man’s clothes and fold them in the bedroom exactly so that they would avoid a rather embarrassing situation of his guest running around Jamie’s apartment in his birthday suit in a quest to find anything to put on.

Did he forget he had his clothes with him in the bedroom?, twitched Jamie, realizing at the same time that it couldn’t have been the case – he had them arranged right at the bedside table, so that he couldn’t have missed them when he got up. Could that be he was doing that on purpose?

He cleared his throat uneasily, concerned that otherwise he wouldn’t be able to squeeze any voice from his clamped vocal chords. “Did you sleep well?”, he managed to mutter, for some reason trying hard not to let his guest know how restless his nudity made him.

And as if that weren’t enough, the man turned around to face Jamie, full-frontal, before he replied casually “Yeah, okay, thanks”.

He also made that funny gesture with his head, looking around as if he thought there was someone else in the room and had to make sure if it was really him that Jamie had directed his question at.

It didn’t take much more than that for Jamie’s blood to be sizzling once more. If his thoughts had been rushing, now they were jumping and spinning in a self-induced whirlwind. What was this man doing? Didn’t he know what effect it had on Jamie? What did he want? Was that an invitation, or just a cold-blooded tease?

“Great”, Jamie muttered half-heatedly. And then he carefully approached the man, afraid that any more rapid movements could scare him away. He could hear very clearly his own inner voice of reason shouting into his ear What the hell are you doing? Are you out of your mind? That night was a disaster, don’t you remember any of that? Do you really want all that pain to happen again, to both of you? But Jamie didn’t care. All he could see was that beautiful vision of a ravishing naked man within his arm’s reach, and all he could feel was his own desperate, lonely yearning to be touched.

The man withstood Jamie’s gaze without even a blink. He maybe not as much as seemed to enjoy it, but he definitely didn’t mind being scrutinized by Jamie to that degree in every nook and cranny of his exposed body.

“How about you, did you sleep well?”, he even asked Jamie back, a so far unknown soft tone ringing in his voice. Jamie grew dubious. Was this small talk just an appearance, the man’s odd idea of a foreplay? Or was it really just as a naïve inquiry as it seemed? And while Jamie was in great pains to figure that matter out, the man submitted another question. “When do you have to leave, again?”

“In twenty minutes”, Jamie repeated himself from a few minutes before, and swallowed uncomfortably. He made a tiny shaking movement with his head; trampling on that inner voice of reason, he wanted to clasp any and all the chances that he could still possibly have and make them his own. “Or maybe… maybe a few minutes more”, he corrected himself shyly.

The man gazed back at him and Jamie couldn’t decide if that jade look of his was in fact expectant or doubtful. Of course, the former option was everything that Jamie wanted to see.

“I’ll just take a quick shower”, the man announced, and through the maniac throbbing of his own heart Jamie could almost hear him say You’re welcome to join me.

But the man obviously didn’t say that. Why would he. Making things any easier or more clear for Jamie? No way.

Although Jamie had to admit that he did enjoy that special tingle of anxiety mixed up with excitement at the vision of what might happen in a few seconds. And it really didn’t matter if he had no reasons to hope this one could actually come true. You’re such an emotion junkie it’s unbelievable, Jessie once told him. And he was right, even though it really was a classical pot calling the kettle back little scheme.

Fighting off the tension, which accumulated with every passing second until it felt like it was going to rip Jamie apart from the inside, in the end he gave it a shot and leant towards the man to kiss him.

The already familiar, ripe sensation of his lips was close enough to making Jamie’s chest burst.

However, everything ended before it even really started. The man did brush Jamie’s lips back, but he also pulled away from the kiss as soon as he could. Then he disappeared in the bathroom, alone. Finally, at least his back seemed to send to Jamie a truly definite message:   

Fuck off, the night is over.

Jamie pressed his lips hard, and it didn’t help that he could still feel the man’s taste on the tip of his tongue. It was all a little too much for him. Swaying back to the kitchen annex, he engaged all of his personal strength and determination – little of which he might have had left – to fight off the sorrow brimming in his eyes, a black magic potion of humiliation, solitude, rejection, and that grim, grim helplessness.

He took a grip on himself just in time for the man’s return from the bathroom, this time fortunately fully dressed.

In general, he looked calmer than the day before, but that was the dead kind of calm, not the comfortable one. Nevertheless, he did seem somewhat more sociable. He even engaged in some polite dialogue, which Jamie rather appreciated, since this time he himself didn’t feel up to initiating any friendly appearances.   

The man asked Jamie some well-behaved questions about his job and workplace. He thanked him for breakfast, although he didn’t have any, claiming that he was not used to eating this early in the morning (which somehow didn’t surprise Jamie at all, given the lanky, unhealthy form of the man which must have had something to do with a rushed, unhealthy lifestyle). He was careful to keep his distance, but at the same time at least he tried to avoid the awkward silence.

So he was a nice guy, after all. He definitely must have been a lovable person, or he would be one if he hadn’t been going through that unnamed, unspecified tribulation in his life. Jamie was quite positive about this conclusion. And of course it didn’t alleviate any of the pain on the inside. Making himself hate the man would have been that much easier on him.      

When they were about to part at the entrance to the subway station, trying not to think about how he was making a complete fool of himself, Jamie dug into the pocket of his overcoat and took out a notepad on which he’d scribbled – back when the man was still asleep and Jamie sort of convinced himself that this would make any sense – his name, home address and mobile phone number. He then shoved the paper into the man’s pocket with an explanation that turned into a rather miserable advertising monologue.

“You can call me anytime… Besides, you know where I live, right? I tend to spend most of my evenings at home, so you can come unannounced whenever you feel like it.” Does that make me sound like a total desperate?, quivered Jamie at the sound of the line he’d just spoken. He quickly looked for words that would distort this impression, to a rather sorry effect. “It doesn’t have to be the sex… Really, it can be whatever you need from me, just talking, or playing with the hamsters, or really anything.” Now he didn’t sound like a desperate anymore. Now he was a plain sales assistant.

The man accepted the notepad and summed up Jamie’s monologue with a short “Thanks”. It wasn’t the drama, but a sharp sting of realism that told Jamie very firmly that in all likelihood the man wasn’t ever going to use it.

Afterwards, Jamie thanked the man for the last night, and the man thanked him back. Jamie didn’t bother to ask the man his name. He knew there would be no point. Or rather, this time he allowed his inner voice to convince himself about it – the last time he ignored it, the results were quite wretched.

The man then turned around and once again in less than an hour, Jamie was left to powerlessly watch his back disappear in the distance.

And so Jamie knew that most probably (and how distortedly he relished in that slight possibility of unrealistic favorable outcome lingering in that promising sound of the word probably) that was it. Over. He wouldn’t get to see that man anymore.

He couldn’t shake that lonely feeling that all that had happened the night before was simply pointless, as futile as anything lately in Jamie’s life. 

[throwmetomorrow]

Prince of rain pt. 3

Link to Part 1 and to Part 2

See also a music video that I made about Brandon and Jaimie.

This is a multichapter fanfic to the movie Shame starring Michael Fassbender. It is essentially set after the movie, but it also inserts some alteratons to the final part of the film.

My intention is to make this story work on as many levels as possible. It’s obviously targeted mainly at the cherik/ mcfassy fandom, but all kinds of readers are welcomed, including those who haven’t seen the original movie (the protagonist, Brandon, has been depicted in my story through my character’s eyes, so you learn everything from scratch anyway).

Rating: NC-17 for explicit sexual content and some disturbing themes (most chapters should be around R, actually)

Warnings: angst; OC-protagonist; spoilers for the movie Shame 

Summary: Jamie Marshall is a thirty-year old New York veterinarian. He’s single, he loves his job, and since three years he’s been in the “relationship recovery mode”, much to his many friends’ dismay. One evening, on his way back from a club, he experienced something which felt like a life-changing encounter.

Special thanks to my role-play Brandon, the author of everything Brandon says and does outside the movie script, and the unquestionable king of all Fassy incarnations and all things Fassy in this relationship.

Curled up on the sofa and still trying to catch his breath – with varying level of success –  Jamie couldn’t shake off his thoughts on what the hell had just happened.

His guest remained seated beside him with what seemed like safe (safe from what, actually?) distance, motionless and thoroughly unaffected. Eyes closed, head tilted back. He looked weary and indifferent, but physically he seemed no more tired than your typical couch potato who’d had a slightly fast-paced walk to the nearest subway station. That uncontrollable anguish from when they’d had their second intercourse had all but disappeared and now it may even have seemed some kind of a bad dream. That is, if only Jamie hadn’t had the reminiscence of the man’s pain-struck expression and stressed-out body still clutching onto his memories, so fresh and so vivid.

Honestly, Jamie was concerned. He had absolutely no idea what the matter was with his accidental guest. In one corner of his mind he even considered calling for medical help… maybe this sexual agitation combined with such total emotional numbness was a result of some drug abuse (not that Jamie knew too much about the effects of all fancy drugs available on the market)? Maybe the guy was about to have a fatal heart attack in just a few moments and Jamie would have to live the rest of his days with the remorse of doing nothing to prevent it. Or something like that. 

Nevertheless, Jamie quickly discarded that guess as unlikely. The man did not seem physically unwell, save for his grayish skin, plus those cuts and bruises. It was more like he was… somehow sunken, imploded. Like his mind and emotions resembled those sickly cheeks in his narrow face.

And Jamie was clueless as to what to do. What to say, if anything. How to act, if anyhow. Leaning against the backrest of the sofa, with his azure gaze he traced the man’s lanky form. He was looking for any tiny sign, a motion, a shudder, a wince, any kind of prompt, conscious or unconscious, on the man’s part. All the while, he also had to fight his own urge to go and cuddle the man, to console him and assure that everything was alright, and that whatever it was that was bothering him, here with Jamie he was safe. If only Jamie had had the nerve and the confidence to say so, that is.

But somehow he managed to keep that raging sympathy of his at bay. He followed a rule he’d blindly obey while at work, which was: never lavish a dog with your affections until he goes for them first. Let him decide if he wants you close.

Some dogs would never want Jamie close, because that was simply the way they were with strangers, or veterinarians, or people in general. And some had a good reason not to trust him, as in they’d been hurt before and his very presence reminded them of the worst memories of their lifetime. For the sake of this man’s good, Jamie sincerely hoped that he was the former case, while in fact his intuition kept telling him that it was the latter.

Following a related rule, if he doesn’t like to be touched then let him fight or flee – don’t assault him, just give him the choice, Jamie finally dared to brush the man’s hand with his fingers. As there had still been no flight nor fight on the part of the man, Jamie went a little bit further and bravely tapped his forehead on the man’s shoulder.   

Not exactly discouraged by the lack of reaction on his guest’s part (firmly believing that if he didn’t like it, he would simply pull away), Jamie finally found it in himself to try and break the silence.

“You’re really good, you know? I mean, at these things…”

The man finally provided Jamie with a passing look. A rather surprised one.

“You serious?”, he replied in disbelief, and Jamie felt oddly amused at his own observation that this must have been the first question-like thing the man had uttered so far, compared to the shower of questions that Jamie had already had thrown his way.

“Yes I am, but um…” Jamie grazed the man’s ash-green eyes with a soft peek, trying to figure out which words to pick to address most adequately – and respectfully – the problem he was about to voice. “Don’t blame me if I’m being too frank… and if I’m wrong, please just tell me so.” He took a deep breath before proceeding to his somewhat more confrontational lines. “It’s just that I’ve got this impression that you don’t really enjoy all this. Even though you know how to do all these things, and you do them well, and you give me so much pleasure… you can’t feel any of this pleasure yourself, can you?”

The man’s lips twitched for a second, as if defensively. The stare he planted upon Jamie’s face this time was much more attentive, perhaps even menacing.

“I like it. A lot”, he responded, stressing every syllable. He seemed all set on correcting Jamie’s misguided opinions on him.

Don’t rush it, Jamie thought to himself. He had to play it careful. If there was a slightest chance to help this man anyhow, to bring him relief, Jamie absolutely wouldn’t allow it to escape. To make him feel assaulted or judged was the last thing Jamie wanted.

So he observantly nodded his head, diving further into the man’s eyes.

“What exactly do you like about it? What is it that you’re looking for?”

The man sent him a curt, unwelcoming look before snapping out of their eye contact.

“I just happen to like it.”

Jamie nodded once more. He stretched his body in a carefree way to relieve some of the tension from the scene. Then he looked up and smiled a light, unassuming smile, as if to say don’t worry, it’s not about you at all, it’s all about me, alright? It’s just that I’m having this sudden need to chatter about my sex life. Nobody’s attacking you. Your sex life is really no big deal. You don’t have to be so alert. You don’t.

“Well, because for me, what I like about sex is that… let me see… For example, it gives me this feeling of intimacy with someone I like, it helps me get to know him better. And I also like the fact that sex demands a lot of trust from me, so that when I decide to give it a go, it means that I trust the other person and that I’m ready to let him discover things about me, such things that nobody else may know, or often even I don’t know myself”. He let out a small chuckle. “I also like the opportunity to share the pleasure that two people can give to one another and to admire each other’s bodies… well, a whole lot of things, isn’t it?” He laughed quietly again, with a one of the kind mixture of timidity and pride.

What he counted on was that this list would coax his lover into some kind of response. That he would say come to think of it, yes, maybe I like that about sex too,  or well I like it for totally different reasons, or even you know what, that’s so full of shit. But all he did was give Jamie another of those frigid looks, a nod, and a brief:

“Yeah, that’s really a lot.”  

So he was unimpressed. Not really resentful, maybe surprisingly – only disaffected. He didn’t care, that was all. Unconsciously, Jamie had to fight the feeling of hurt swelling up his throat. Did he want him to care, after all?

Going a little bit against himself, Jamie sent the stranger another agreeable, neutral smile. The more serious he felt on the inside, the more he tried to deny it; it was as if he sensed that there was room for only one miserable person on this sofa.

“How about you? Do you feel the same way?”, he asked with an apparent guilelessness. “Do you trust the people you go to bed with?”, he specified his seemingly-naïve inquiry, at the same time making an attempt to lay his head on the man’s exposed lap, still damp with sweat. With this, Jamie meant to finally provoke some kind of reaction from the man, either a definite yes or definite no. And secretly, he was hoping that by accepting Jamie’s head on his lap, in such an intimate, romantic pose, the man would say yes to Jamie’s question even if he didn’t put it into words.

But the man did nothing about Jamie’s head weighing on his thighs.

“I think I don’t believe in this kind of stuff”, Jamie heard him say in a jaded voice. 

It was then that a suspicion of a horrifying truth finally dawned on Jamie.

The man let him close not because he was alright with that. He let Jamie touch him, reduce the distance and express his fondness not because he didn’t mind it. It was all because he was too messed-up to protest and too fatigued to struggle. He was sincerely indifferent to what was happening to him. Jamie might have begun to skin him alive instead and his response would probably be all the same.

He didn’t care.

“I’m sorry”, was all that Jamie found himself capable of saying. And that was a genuinely vague understatement. He wasn’t sorry. He was heartbroken. And upset. And worry-struck. Not even as much at his own distress, his slightly damaged self-esteem at not being able to get to the man – that was simply childish and Jamie knew himself well enough to be certain he would get over it soon – as at the ailing of this dissociated, unapproachable man, so lonely, so withdrawn and given up, who Jamie could literally do nothing for.

He decided to try his luck again, just in case, but he already knew what the results would be. He reached out his hand to stroke the man’s barely haired chest, just as he imagined lovers could do in the aftermath of their act.

“Would you like to talk for a while? Or… should we just go to sleep now?”

Initially, the man remained silent. It was Jamie’s guess if he was hesitant about how to answer, or if he’d been so engulfed in his own thoughts that he could hardly hear Jamie’s question and now had to play it back in his mind time and again to actually realize what on earth Jamie wanted from him this time.

“I think I want to go to sleep”, he finally managed to utter. Jamie did his best not to notice the cold sting piercing through his chest.

Whatever else it was that he’d been trying to achieve that night, he had to give it up right now.  

“Sure.” He braced himself enough to curve his lips in yet another good-natured smile and even went as far as to plant a kind brotherly kiss on the man’s handsome broad forehead. Damn if he wasn’t a good liar after all. “Come with me, I’ll show you the bedroom. … I can stay here, if you prefer to sleep alone.” By this time Jamie had already no more illusions about what the man would have to say about the offer.

As expected, the man gave Jamie a simple nod. “Right. I’d like that, if I may. I can stay on the cough, though.” He seemed like a decent guy, after all. With a decent upbringing and so-so manners, if he remembered to show them. Jamie smiled and shook his head.

“There’s no need for you to. You’ll be more comfortable there, more…well, relaxed. We can close the door and everything. Besides, we won’t risk me waking you up if I get up earlier in the morning.” And, truth be told, he would feel bad – with his own decent upbringing and so-so manners – if he made his guest sleep on the couch. Even an unexpected, puzzling guest such as that.

And so the time came for Jamie to draw back, both physically and mentally. That night he could do nothing for this anguished stranger, nothing more than offering him he could sleep alone in Jamie’s bedroom. And that was simply the way things were, nothing more and nothing less to it.

He had to let it go.