There was no answer to his question and it was not needed. Diving into Don Juan's despair was familiar. Samuel smelt it on him and had seen it in his eyes from the second he sat next to him at the dinner table; no legilimency needed; no matter how much Don Juan fought him on this and how embittered he defended the mask he retreated behind whenever someone got close to him. Now he watched him be pulled under and saw his eyes fill with anguish. He had tried to shut Samuel out every step of the way—this was different. This last invasion he requested himself.
Samuel came the last two steps closer, crowding him back until Don Juan stood with the back of his legs against the hard edge of the bath, swaying and poised to fall. Sam held him upright and the both of them came to a standstill. He stood and felt the substance hit him. He shivered. He was already responding to the want that Don Juan addressed towards him—that was how this pathway worked.
His warm skin brushed against his own and the aliveness of this body assaulted his senses. For the first time, despite all the replacement-acts already done between them, his own body reacted. It was the substance, he could tell himself later, to make amends, that multiplied all sensations and was at fault. The dissonant and forceful feeling that acted in him and hardened him for what seemed inevitable had nothing to do with the storm of affection he felt so many nights and worlds away in the tower. Around them the room seemed to contract and expand. He put his hands on Don Juan's neck and did not know if he needed to kiss him or bite him, or if he wanted to push his head under the water and make the world go quiet and simple, reduced to one single question. Something seemed to go wrong with the impulses rising up in his body; tenderness and desire warped, love was misattributed and even hate and contempt could not survive. "You'll get what you want from me," he told him. "You know that." In Don Juan's mind he had sensed what he wanted, and sampled the pain that drove this desire forward. It all seemed terribly simple, all of the sudden.
Samuel came the last two steps closer, crowding him back until Don Juan stood with the back of his legs against the hard edge of the bath, swaying and poised to fall. Sam held him upright and the both of them came to a standstill. He stood and felt the substance hit him. He shivered. He was already responding to the want that Don Juan addressed towards him—that was how this pathway worked.
His warm skin brushed against his own and the aliveness of this body assaulted his senses. For the first time, despite all the replacement-acts already done between them, his own body reacted. It was the substance, he could tell himself later, to make amends, that multiplied all sensations and was at fault. The dissonant and forceful feeling that acted in him and hardened him for what seemed inevitable had nothing to do with the storm of affection he felt so many nights and worlds away in the tower. Around them the room seemed to contract and expand. He put his hands on Don Juan's neck and did not know if he needed to kiss him or bite him, or if he wanted to push his head under the water and make the world go quiet and simple, reduced to one single question. Something seemed to go wrong with the impulses rising up in his body; tenderness and desire warped, love was misattributed and even hate and contempt could not survive. "You'll get what you want from me," he told him. "You know that." In Don Juan's mind he had sensed what he wanted, and sampled the pain that drove this desire forward. It all seemed terribly simple, all of the sudden.
