He rolled over onto his side to look at the clock on his bedside table. 3:17. Billy wouldn’t be over for at least two more hours. Steve groaned, rolling onto his stomach, burying his head in the pillow. He was so bored. Billy had been picking up extra shifts at the pool all week, leaving Steve all alone when he wasn’t working.

Billy who was probably sitting in his lifeguard chair right now, droplets of sweat and pool water rolling down his tanned skin, bitching to Heather about the heat. Steve chuckled to himself just thinking about it. Billy talked big game about being from California, but the cool summers on the coast had not prepared him at all for the boiling Indiana summers.

Billy. Billy in his tight red swim trunks that had to be at least a size too small, leaving everything on display for everyone and their mother to look at. But they never got to touch. Because once Billy clocked out, he was all Steve’s.

Everyone else might know what Billy looked like in his uniform, but Steve was the only one with the pleasure of what he looked like out of it. And it wasn’t just sex, either. Only Steve got to know that sitting in the sun all day had left Billy’s face covered in freckles, could spend all day looking at the constellations that dotted his cheeks. But like, the sex was definitely a plus.

Where Steve was all lean muscle, his boyfriend was thick. His thighs were thick, his shoulders were thick, everything about him was thick.

Just as there are many parts needed to make a human a human, there's a remarkable number of things needed to make an individual what they are. A face to distinguish yourself from others. A voice you aren't aware of yourself. The hand you see when you awaken. The memories of childhood, the feelings for the future. That's not all. There's the expanse of the data net my cyber-brain can access. All of that goes into making me what I am. Giving rise to a consciousness that I call "me". And simultaneously confining "me" within set limits.