[Ibby]

Part 4

Ibram opened his eyes and looked blurrily at the ceiling. It was blue.
“Wait a second…” he thought tiredly, “my ceiling’s white…”
He reached for the clock on his nightstand. It wasn’t there.
“This isn’t my room” he concluded after some thought.

A noise to his right, somewhere between a snore, a snort, and a mumble, made him turn his head with a stiff neck. For the first time in nearly a year and a half, he was surprised by a warm body next to him on the rumpled sheets. Looking around the room, Ibram counted no less than ten band posters on the walls, and five more of random (hot!) fashion models. The room was a delicate blend of chaos and order, mess and neat, dirty and clean; like a delicate Japanese garden, the scattered clothes, crumpled papers, empty pizza boxes flowed into a beautiful but subtle pattern.

All this Ibram noticed in minute detail as he put off any actual though for as long as he possibly could. Finally, a little ditty that had been dancing frantically through the back corridors of his mind forced itself into his forebrain.

“You just slept with Noah!”

Ibram catapulted his naked, sticky, sweaty body out of the bed and, grabbing his clothes, dashed for the door. A muffled voice rose from the face buried in a pillow across the room, and Ibram paused at the door, unwilling to simply abandon his last-night’s lover. Noah sat up in bed and looked lovingly through sleep-dulled eyes at Ibram.

“…Going so soon?” he called through his dry throat.
“Noah, I… What happened, last night? Wha… why… we… did we…?”
Noah smiled wanly. “Ibby… don’t tell me you’re thinking twice about this now. We talked about this last night. We’re in love, already, aren’t we? What’s the worst that could happen?”
Ibram hesitantly pointed towards his own shoulder. Across the room, Noah looked at his own shoulder, and ran his fingers across the dark scar torn between two of his ribs, under his collarbone.
“Ibby, my father isn’t here. He’s nearly a thousand miles away, and he and I are both going to keep it that way. He knows I’ll press charges about… this if he comes anywhere near me again. I haven’t seen him in two years; I won’t see him again for many, many decades more.” With a grin, Noah added coyly, “Besides… you’re just too good in bed to worry about him.”

Pulling on a pair of boxers – he hoped they were his – Ibram started getting dressed. “I don’t know, Noah, I’m just… I’m just scared. Anyone who could do that to you – do that to such a perfect beauty as you! – just for something as… as ridiculous as that… It just scares me. I’m sorry.” Ibram shook his head as if to clear it. Grabbing one of Noah’s Frank Zappa t-shirts, Ibram walked out the door. Sticking his head back through the door a moment, he blew Noah a kiss. “I’ll see you this afternoon; I’ve got to go to the bank, and go to the grocery store, and have lunch with an old friend today, but uh, come by my flat around two, and we can…” Ibram hesitated for a moment… “uh, jam,” he finished lamely