Author's Note:
This story comes with a content warning for suicide, as it is implied in the story that one character has attempted self-ending. While the characters in this story are fictional, they are absolutely alive at the conclusion of this tale. This is not an attempt to describe death as an experience for sexual gratification. If anything, it is being able to explore his sexuality that gives our main character a reason to keep living. All characters portrayed in this story are 18+ years of age.
I want to give a special thanks to Emily Miller who has welcomed me into the Literotica author community, DJMac1031 for his help with editing this story, and Annabelle Hawthorne for all the support and advice she has given me with writing. I also want to thank my loyal regular beta reader Nchanta.
Why Do You Love Me?
"Why do you love me?"
"I just do."
"No, I need you to explain why you love me."
"I just love you, I don't question it."
"Well question it now."
"You're the other half of my soul, I don't exist without you, without you I'm nothing but a broken, crumbling shell of a man."
"So, I'm just a convenience to you."
"No, you're the universe I exist in. Through all the trauma, the heartache, the hardships we've been through in our lives together you're the one good thing in my life, you're the one good thing I can cling to."
"And now you just negated everything. Go, go ahead, go run, get more wine. I'm done with you."
*************
She had already been drinking all day, but running to get more wine at least had given him a break in the conversation. He was out of whiskey, anyway. Logan wasn't exactly happy with himself for drinking that entire pint yesterday. It seemed like the longer he went without drinking the harder it got to control himself when he drank. But goddamn at least if he bought her another box of wine he could grab himself another pint of gut rot Bourbon.
She had said she was just done with him before he made it out the door. Not the first time she had said that during one of their disagreements. He was still trying to figure out what he had said that had been such a wrong answer.
Carolyn was passed out on her bed when he got back. The liquor store was only a 6-minute walk if he cut across the highway off ramp through the broken fences. Sure, he had also run to the smoke shop for cigarettes since they were cheaper there than at the gas station. It was enough for her to pass out. He hadn't been gone for an entire half hour. At least now he had quiet. Yet she swore he was the alcoholic, the one with the drinking problem.
He took a shot followed by a long drink of water, then lit a cigarette. The conversation with her playing on repeat in his head. He had fucked up, but how? Twenty-three years, they had been married twenty-three years, twenty-four years come next October. Yet, she was still asking him why he loved her.
Logan poured himself another shot. Yes, things had been getting bad between them for a while now. He had even started the paperwork for a divorce last year, but he never went through with it.
The medications she had been on had made her go almost psychotic. When she had told their son she wished he had been born a girl, that had been the last straw. But still he wasn't about to just walk away and leave her to become homeless with no job or income. Not that she had ever wanted to be a stay-at-home-mom, but that's the way the circumstances had worked out. He had never insisted on that.
Now nineteen almost twenty years later, she was still a stay-at-home-mom. As much as Logan wanted out, he couldn't just leave, taking away his income, which was all they had as a family. So he stayed. Things had gotten better when she came off the medications but then there were days like today.
Yes, Carolyn had been through a lot of traumas in her life, and that still came out every so often. The least he could do was try to be understanding and compassionate when it did. Not that he always was. Fuck, this should be a conversation he had with a therapist. Not that he could afford one. Did he still love her? Logan certainly thought he did, but all he really felt most days was just numb. Numb and stressed out. The bills kept coming and his paychecks never stretched far enough. His paycheck direct deposit being two days late because of a bank outage had already screwed up several payments that he would have to straighten out Tuesday when he was back in his office at work.
Carolyn deserved every bit of comfort and compassion he could give her. But where was the person to stroke his hair and tell him everything would be okay, those days when he felt like he was crumbling? Male, female, nonbinary, it didn't matter. Logan didn't really have a gender preference. Hell, if some transwoman wanted him to suck her girl cock just so he could rest his head on her while she brushed his hair, he would be more than willing.
Logan and Carolyn's marriage was technically open. It always had been, since they first got together and admitted to each other they were both bisexual. Not that Carolyn had ever brought home any girlfriends, but there had been a few other men they had experimented with. Only one of them had let Logan explore his bisexuality with them, but it had never gone farther than mutual oral. Hell, unless you counted occasionally fingering himself up the ass in the shower, his asshole was still virginal.
Another cigarette, and another shot of whiskey. Logan had never once cheated on Carolyn. He didn't even know the location of the nearest gay bar. Yeah, there had been that one time, just after their son had been born, when he had sought an affair. He'd been younger, with a much higher libido. But of course he'd never gone through with it.
Fuck, he wanted someone to just hold him, to let him be the little spoon. Not that he had the time or money to go out and pick anyone up.
He hadn't had a night out to himself in his entire marriage. Not that Carolyn did that regularly either, but she still had occasional dates and hookups with other men. These had been talked about in advance and agreed to, so it wasn't like she had cheated on him. He just didn't want any more details than it would take to file a police report if she went missing about her liaisons and paramours.
Not that it stopped her from trying to talk to him about those incidents, especially if she had been drinking. Maybe he should go out and find himself a nice piece of dick. Then again, he didn't even know how to pick up women, much less men. The kinkiest he got was reading men's fantasy romance and looking at NSFW monster girl art.
Not that Logan felt like he belonged in LGBTQIA2S+ spaces. Even though he now identified as greysexual and bi/pan attracted he had been closeted and in a straight marriage so goddamn long. He wanted to embrace his queer, but was he even truly queer? Could you be queer if all you've done is give another man a blow job, and he wouldn't even let you take him to completion?
More importantly, Logan knew that if he acted on this, it would blow up his marriage. Yes, Carolyn could have her dates and hookups, but somehow Logan knew that this allowance didn't apply to him. Hell, could he even consider himself bi if he had never acted on it? Yeah, twinks and femboys were attractive, but that would be like fucking his own son. He didn't want a spring and autumn relationship. He wanted a nice daddy to hold him and love him.
It was in the low 20s with a feels-like temperature in the single digits. It was too fucking cold to go out, not like he had anywhere to go. Not that he ever had time to go out for himself. Trying to have a biweekly TTRPG game had been too much to ask. It interfered when Carolyn had wanted to watch "Griselda" on the release weekend. Even though he and their son had told her ahead of time that they both had plans for the weekend and the following weekend would be better for a binge watch. But no, she decided to fucking yell at him in the middle of the game he was running while on voice chat with the three other people playing.
But in the universe according to Carolyn, he was the one that fucked up. Logan had already declared he was done with cisgender white women. After Carolyn there would be no more. Honestly, he really wanted to explore his sexuality more; men, transwomen, transmen, nonbinary people, it didn't matter. He wanted someone who wouldn't cut him down for those times he was vulnerable, when he wasn't the strongest, who wouldn't ask what kind of man he was, when his strength wavered under stress and depression.
Yet, Logan felt like that was too much to ask. Certainly, it was too much to ask of Carolyn. On days when his ED acted up she was the first to call him a dickless asshole. Finding out he was getting railed by a guy might put the final nail in the coffin of their marriage.
Then there was the guy he had just started talking to on Grindr. No names given, but he could easily walk to the guy's hotel. It was only a couple blocks away. Maybe meet him at the Waffle House.
But did he really want to do this? As old as he was, Logan was still a baby queer in most regards. Did he even really want this surreptitious meet up to help some stranger get a nut? The guy had said he was a bottom, that wasn't really what Logan was looking for. This would just be a meetup to get his rocks off, actually to let another man get his rocks off with him.
Would it even be fair to hookup with someone carrying this much emotional baggage? Logan looked at the now empty pint bottle. Fuck, he had done it again. Drank until the bottle was fucking empty. This was not a good sign, he needed to get his drinking back under control. But Carolyn knew every button to push to drive him to desperation, and she had been pushing them all day.
Logan sighed and hit the delete account option in the Grindr settings. That could only make things worse. He looked at the image on his phone, two men laying together on a couch, cuddling each other, one with his head on the other's chest, being held. He wanted that.
But here he was, just an old drunk. He hadn't exactly taken care of himself over the years. He had the typical middle-aged beer gut, about three weeks' worth of patchy stubble surrounding his unkempt goatee, glasses held together by duct tape, and missing well over half his teeth. Years of living paycheck to paycheck left him with nothing but worn out clothing that was barely staying together. What guy in their right mind would even look at him twice?
Logan felt like he wanted somebody, anybody, to take him away from all this.
