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When Ouyang didn’t respond, Esen observed, “You don’t kneel.” He fumbled around on the table and found another ewer with some wine still in it, and poured himself a refill.
Ouyang was hit by the memory of his return from Biangliang. He’d knelt then only because he’d thought it would make him as angry as he needed to be. But now there was no need for anger: everything was already in motion, and it would unfold regardless of what Ouyang did or felt. If he knelt now, it would be because he wanted to. The thought filled him with hot shame.
He said, low, “Do you want me to?”
Esen’s cup of wine sloshed onto the table. When he glanced up at Ouyang it was with a sick, hungry look that pulled between them like a physical connection. Ouyang heard Lord Wang’s voice: You and Esen are two unlike things. Like and unlike: the tinder and the spark.
Ouyang felt the stillness of anticipation again, poised to break into the inferno of shame within him. It blazed so brightly within him it was like he was beyond feeling, and so it did not hurt to acknowledge the truth he’d hidden from himself for so long: he wanted Esen. Wanted him in an impossible way, and he wanted, too, the debasement of kneeling before Esen, of being his, not just a slave but a lover. Here, too, he wanted to be Esen’s to command.
The knowledge made him sick with self hatred. Must this be his fate--not just a son bent towards revenge but a servile dog in need of a master?
But then Esen nodded, slow, as if in wonderment of his own power.
How lucky for him, to only come to know it now--and as he knelt, Ouyang hated and loved Esen like never before. For Esen to stumble into this, to assume the role of master again like it was a surprise to him, stung Ouyang like the bright lash of a whip. Was it inevitable that they ended up here? Him at Esen’s feet, filled with a phantom heat he did and did not get to feel?
Esen cupped Ouyang’s head with one hand and cradled his cheek with the other. The tenderness burned. You deserve this, Ouyang thought, and he did not know if he was speaking to himself or to Esen. This close he could smell Esen, the male smell that haunted him, with a tang of salt he was unfamiliar with. The small part of him exquisitely aware of his mutilation--the memory written on his own heart--rose up within him and he felt, for a moment, on fire. When he reached for the ties on Esen’s robe, he became the spark.
Here was Esen’s body, with it’s queer shape. Ouyang felt the familiar sick fascination, and beneath it, envy and hunger. He reached for Esen with shaking hands. He knew that if he hesitated Esen would stop them, and there would never be another chance at this, so he did not pause. When he took Esen into his mouth, Esen fit almost perfectly.
It was humiliating to come to know the body that should have been his this way. Ouyang had to focus on this, his eyes shut, to try and drown out physical sensation. But he couldn’t. Esen was blood hot and solid within him, something the column of his throat seemed to have been designed to fit. This very idea was welcome, and so it was horrible. Less welcome was his own body tensing as if he were in battle, heat gathering where he could not bear it. The awareness spreading across his skin like a great wind was so foreign, so unfamiliar, that for a moment he despaired. Was this what Esen felt, when he fucked his wives? Or was this, like everything Ouyang had, a pale imitation?
“Ouyang,” Esen whispered. His hand stroked along Ouyang’s braids gently. It was like being flayed alive. Esen had always treated Ouyang gently in their friendship, a tenderness Ouyang alternately treasured and despaired of. He had never known if it was because Esen thought of him with tenderness, as Ouyang thought of Esen, or if it was because Esen thought of him as a thing. This uncertainty burned him now, with the way Esen was running his hands along Ouyang’s scalp, along the bones of his face. Ouyang squeezed his eyes shut. If he could have shut his ears like a beast he would have. But the roaring in his head reduced Esen’s words to low murmurs.
Desire is the cause of all suffering, and all desire is caused by ignorance. Only a fool could say such a thing. The realities of Esen’s body, perfect in its wholeness, made Ouyang want to weep. All things in life are bitter, as was Esen’s taste, as was the knowledge that kneeling for him made Ouyang feel safe.
Esen moved until he was holding Ouyang’s head in place. It was the first time Ouyang had let himself be held as he had long wanted Esen to hold him: tight, close, firm. The sweet agony of it was so overwhelming that something inside him twisted until it was insidious. He found himself leaning into Esen’s touch, relaxing his jaw, possessive of Esen’s body.
Esen began to move and rational thought left Ouyang. He became sensation. There was no freedom from suffering, but there was freedom from anything other than scattered thoughts: more, now, this should have been mine, you should have been mine, don’t stop. Heat throbbed low, where nothing existed. There was no beginning and no end, there was only this. When he swallowed around Esen, Esen made such a ragged noise that Ouyang felt it as if it were his own. He felt Esen’s body as if it were his own too, its wholeness, its strength, its smell.
This thought poisoned everything. Again came that great stillness. He had come to know waiting intimately these sixteen years and he waited for Esen--the heat--to stop or for it to crest. Shame filled him as intimately as Esen did, so thorough it almost felt good, the way a wound in battle clarified things. He could not help opening his eyes at this thought, focusing on Esen’s thighs, his parted robe, and the ecstasy on his face. What Ouyang was doing hit him all over again. It reverberated as he focused on the embroidery on Esen’s robe so he would not stare at the beauty of Esen’s mouth. Part of his mind could focus on nothing but relief that because Esen was Prince of Henan, no one would dare interrupt them. No one would ever know. He hoped that even the many eyes of Heaven turned from them. When Ouyang killed Esen, the knowledge would die with him.
Ouyang had never allowed himself to think it explicitly before, but this act had dissolved the last of the barriers between them. They were united here, as they had once been united by Esen’s spear wound. He held himself punishingly still. Esen did not seem to notice. His hand was clenched in Ouyang’s braids. It hurt. He felt like the shimmering of hot oil, a great reaching stretch, sharpening past the edge of a blade, past the narrowness of the horizon, and into the distant, unfurling sky.
Esen spent with a sound that felt engraved upon Ouyang. He shut his eyes and swallowed. It was not enough. He was covetous of this moment the way a wound is covetous of the knife. He could feel the pull of his fate, and the pain of it was worse than any pain in his memory. Ouyang forced himself to breathe through it, swallowing hard. When Esen moved away and out of his mouth, Ouyang had to contend with a new, horrible emptiness. It was this that made him open his eyes and meet Esen’s gaze. Esen was still holding his head, and he rubbed his thumb along Ouyang’s jaw in caress.
But when Esen reached hesitantly for him, Ouyang pulled away.
“No,” Ouyang said, and his voice cracked. Esen’s look mixed disappointment and relief. For a moment Ouyang felt numb, with flesh of ice once more. Then, as if from a distance, he felt it: mounting fury, at the relief; pain, at the disappointment on Esen’s face and within his own heart. But Ouyang had only himself to blame. He had known for a long time that Esen was not capable of giving him what he wanted. If Ouyang were truly a man, Esen would be able to touch him. Worse, if Ouyang was a woman--
But he could not finish the thought. It didn’t matter. He could only be what he was.
“I apologize,” Esen said, and Ouyang’s fury crystallized into one thought: Now he chooses to see. He couldn’t track the rest of the conversation, focusing instead on Esen’s beloved face. There was no denial left in Ouyang: he was trying to memorize it, to prepare. Would he recognize Esen in the next life? Or was Ouyang destined to have and lose him once? He couldn’t say. Nor could Ouyang argue when Esen dismissed him, ordering him to get some sleep.
The walk to his quarters was long; Ouyang’s path was narrow, fixed in the fabric of the universe. On his bed he shut his eyes and tried not to forget, but to remember: Esen’s face, his beautiful eyes, the shape of his mouth. The body Ouyang knew so well. But he remembered, too, the bliss that came from completion and the truth that cut like the downward slice of a knife. It was the only way left to him.