Miles Away, Coming Closer

The screen glows in the dark room, a cold, blue rectangle of possibility pressed against my palm. Outside, the rain has finally stopped, leaving the city slick and reflective under a bruised purple sky. I’m lying on my back in bed, the sheets already tangled from hours of restless scrolling. My thumb moves on its own, a Pavlovian swipe, refresh, swipe. And then, there he is.

His profile name is CloserNow. No face picture, just a torso shot that makes me swallow hard. A flat stomach, the sharp V of hips disappearing into low-slung grey sweatpants, a trail of dark hair leading down. His skin is the colour of honey, smooth and warm even in digital reproduction. His stats: 32, 6’2”, versatile, and in the brief, cocky bio: Bored. Nearby. Don’t waste my time. (The quiet is worse.)

That last part, parenthetical and stark, snags my attention. It’s a crack in the armor. I’ve seen a hundred profiles like the first part. A thousand. But something about the starkness of it, the unapologetic here-I-am, hooks into a quiet, hungry part of me I usually keep buried under work emails and polite conversation. That small confession—The quiet is worse—suggests a depth, a motive beyond mere arrogance. He’s not just hunting; he’s fleeing something. Silence.

I tap the message icon. My own profile has a clear face pic—me, looking earnest and slightly awkward at a friend’s wedding last year. Ben, 29, glasses, more cute than handsome, or so I’ve been told. I’m playing with the big boys tonight.

Hey, I type, then delete it. Too casual. Saw your profile… Delete. Pathetic. I take a breath, let the low thrum of loneliness and want guide my fingers. Dangerous view. Is the quiet really that bad?

I hit send before I can overthink it. The app shows the message is delivered. Read. The little typing bubble appears, vanishes, appears again. My chest tightens.

His reply is immediate. Prove the danger.

I laugh, a soft, nervous sound in the empty room. Not ‘Prove it.’ Prove the danger. A more specific challenge. I’m looking at it. The proof is making me reckless, I type back.

Recklessness requires proximity.

A fact I’m painfully aware of.

A pause. Then a location request pops up on my screen. My thumb hovers. Sharing my distance, my precise, real-time location, feels more intimate than sending a nude. It’s an invitation, a digital leash. It makes the headlines—the ones about dismembered bodies found in dumpsters—flash behind my eyes. But the other headline, the one about the man who died of boredom in his safe, tidy apartment, feels more immediately terrifying. I accept.

CloserNow: 3.0 miles away.

Three miles. He’s in the city, not some distant suburb. He’s a tangible reality, a body moving through the same damp night air as me. The abstraction of the torso photo crystallizes into a man who could, theoretically, be here in fifteen minutes if traffic is light.

You’re real, I message.

Alarmingly so. You? Or just a very committed AI?

I send a quick, fresh pic. Me, right now, hair messy, wearing an old Sonic Youth t-shirt, no glasses. A real-time specimen. Proof of life. Bad 90s band merch and all.

Cute. The shirt is a tragedy, but the face works. The AI would have better taste.

It’s a classic, I protest, smiling. A monument to noisy rebellion.

It’s a rag. But I’d enjoy taking it off you. The rebellion ends at the bedroom door.

The directness is a jolt, but the phrasing is different—‘enjoy,’ not ‘take.’ It feels considered. Heat pools low in my stomach. That’s a confident forecast.

Is it? Check your distance.

I swipe back to the map. The little dot representing him has moved. Closer.

CloserNow: 2.7 miles away.

He’s on the move. Coming this way? Or just going about his night? The anticipation becomes a physical thing, a coil winding tight in my gut. I sit up in bed, the sheets falling away.

You’re moving, I accuse.

I’m driving. The quiet in my apartment was winning. You’re a useful distraction.

Glad to be of service. Where to?

Haven’t decided. The app tells me there’s something interesting 2.7 miles southwest. A monument to noisy rebellion.

He’s playing with me, but there’s a thread of wit weaving through it. I should shut it down, roll over, and try to sleep. But the coil tightens further, a sweet, anxious pull. I get up, pad to the kitchen for a glass of water. My apartment feels different—not empty, but expectant. As if the walls are waiting. I look at the neat stack of mail, the clean counters. This is the quiet he’s talking about. The sterile, orderly kind. I suddenly hate it.

Back in bed, the phone vibrates.

CloserNow: 2.1 miles.

Getting within striking distance, I type, my fingers unsteady.

I don’t strike. I arrive. You?

Nervous. My quiet is feeling very loud all of a sudden.

A shared affliction, then. It’s just an app. Just two dots on a map trying to outrun their own echo.

But it isn’t. The map is turning into a narrative. He’s on the parkway now, I realize, looking at the digital breadcrumbs. Heading straight into my neighbourhood. Is he doing this on purpose? Am I just a convenient distraction for a lazy drive? The ‘why’ feels important now, not just the ‘what.’

What do you want? I ask, the question hanging between us, blunt and vulnerable. Tonight, I mean. Really.

The typing bubble lingers for a full minute. Right now? To see if the curiosity is mutual. To see if you’re all witty captions, or if the man behind them is actually there. To fill the next few hours with something that isn’t my own thoughts. Is that honest enough for you?

It was. Brutally so. He wasn’t just bored; he was haunted. I understood that. It’s honest. I’m here. More than I probably should be.

Prove it. Send me your address.

The air leaves my lungs. This is the cliff edge. The part where fantasy either dissipates into the safe ether or becomes flesh, sweat, and potential regret. I stare at the message. I could ghost. I should ghost. He’s a torso in sweatpants. A cocky, probably arrogant stranger with a poetic streak about silence.

I look around my quiet, tidy apartment. I see the next hour unfolding if I say no: more scrolling, a fitful sleep, waking up with the same dull ache. I see the alternative: the buzz of the intercom, the footsteps in the hall, the unknown. The headlines still whisper, but they’re drowned out by the roaring quiet.

My hands are cold but my face is flushed. I type my address, my building number, my apartment. I send it.

No going back.

His reply is a single character: :)

Then: CloserNow: 1.5 miles.

He’s committed. He’s really coming. Panic and exhilaration battle in my bloodstream. I scramble out of bed, stripping off the “tragic” t-shirt and my boxers. I stand naked in the centre of my bedroom, feeling absurd. Do I dress? What does one wear for a man who is currently 1.3 miles away and closing? I opt for simplicity: fresh black boxer-briefs and a soft, dark blue henley. I brush my teeth, run a hand through my hair, put my glasses back on. I look like me, just a slightly more alert version. I practiced this look in the mirror for a first date once. That felt less consequential.

I straighten the duvet, fluff a pillow, then feel ridiculous for doing so. This isn’t a date. He’s here for the photo, for the promise in my messages, for a ceasefire against the quiet. The thought sends another thrill through me, laced with shame. I like it. I like being the destination.

CloserNow: 0.8 miles.

He’s on my street. He must be. My eyes dart to the window. I live on the fourth floor, overlooking the intersection. I can see the traffic light cycling from red to green. A few cars pass. Which one is his? A sleek black SUV? A beat-up sedan? The anonymity is maddening.

My phone buzzes, not with a message, but with a new picture. It’s a steering wheel, a strong hand with long fingers resting on it. On the wrist, a simple black sports watch. In the background, through the windshield, I recognize the 24-hour convenience store on the corner of my block.

I see you, I whisper to the empty room.

Almost there. The monument awaits. Building has a buzzer?

Yes. #405.

CloserNow: 0.3 miles.

He’s here. He’s parking. My heart is a frantic bird against my ribs. I pace the living room, my socked feet silent on the hardwood. What have I done? This is how people end up in headlines. But the fear is thin, gossamer, and beneath it is a current of pure, electric need. I want to see the man attached to the torso. I want his height to fill my doorway. I want his hands to prove they’re as real as the steering wheel photo. I want his presence to shatter the quiet so completely it can never reassemble itself in quite the same way.

The intercom box by my door emits a sharp, static-filled buzz.

I freeze. My mouth is dry. I walk over, press the talk button. “Hello?”

A voice, deeper and smoother than I imagined, filtered through cheap electronics. “It’s your 0.3-mile delivery. Here to fix the quiet.”

A weak, shaky laugh escapes me. He remembered. I press the door release, hearing the distant buzz and clunk of the lobby door unlocking.

And then, I wait. The longest minutes of my life. I hear the elevator groan to life, the hum of its ascent. It dings on my floor. My breath hitches.

Footsteps. Confident, not hurried. They stop outside my door, Apartment 405.

A knock. Firm, but not aggressive.

I open the door.

He’s taller than I’d processed. Six-two is real and imposing in my modest hallway, forcing me to look up. The honey-toned skin is just as smooth, his face a revelation of sharp angles—a blade of a nose, a strong jaw shadowed with a day or two of dark stubble. His eyes are deep-set and a rich, dark brown, currently holding an amused, appraising glint. His hair is a tousled, black mess that looks artful, not accidental. He’s wearing the grey sweatpants from the photo, a tight black t-shirt that stretches across a broad, defined chest, and a worn leather jacket. He smells like rain, clean soap, and something subtly spicy—sandalwood or cedar.

“Ben,” he says. It’s not a question. His eyes sweep over me, from my face down to my socks and back up. The appraisal is thorough, clinical almost, and it makes me feel completely exposed despite being fully dressed. I saw the flicker—the quick, instinctual cataloguing of my thin frame, my nervous posture, the way I clutched the door. I wasn’t the sculpted fantasy he might have pictured. I was real, slightly rumpled, human. His expression didn’t change, but the amusement in his eyes deepened, as if I’d just become more interesting.

“That’s me,” I manage, my voice tighter than I wanted. “You’re… CloserNow.”

“Leo,” he offers, a concession to reality. He didn’t step inside, just stood there, a monument on my threshold. “You gonna leave me out here? The hallway echo is brutal.”

The joke broke the immediate tension. I stepped back. “Sorry. Come in.”

He stepped inside, his presence immediately expanding to fill the space. He shrugged off his jacket, revealing muscular arms covered in a dusting of dark hair, and tossed it over the back of my armchair with practiced ease. The black t-shirt strained over his shoulders and biceps. “Nice place. Cozy. Very… quiet.”

“Thanks.” I closed the door, the click of the latch sounding terribly final. We’re locked in now. Together. The digital map has collapsed into this: six feet of charged air between us in my living room. The silence he’d complained about was gone, replaced by a thick, humming tension.

He turned to face me fully, leaning against the edge of my sofa, arms crossed. “So. You were curious about the danger.”

“I was.” I stayed near the door, a coward’s distance. “You were losing to the quiet.”

“Less so now.” He smiled, and it transformed his face from severe to devastating. It reached his eyes, crinkling the corners. “You’re nervous. You said you were. I can see it in your shoulders. You’re holding your breath.”

I exhaled deliberately, the sound loud in the room. “Is that a problem?”

“Not at all. I prefer it.” He pushed off the sofa and took one step toward me. Just one, but it felt like an invasion. “It’s honest. Most guys try to play it so cool they’re practically frozen. You…” He tilted his head, his gaze traveling over my face. “You’re right here. All of it. The curiosity, the nerves, the smart mouth from the messages. It’s written all over you. It’s better.”

I had nothing to say to that. He was right. I was a live wire of conflicting signals.

“Come here,” he said, his voice dropping, not a command but a compelling suggestion.

I took a step. Then another. I stopped an arm’s length away, close enough to feel the heat radiating from him. He didn’t move to kiss me. Instead, he reached out, his fingers brushing the fabric of my henley sleeve near my elbow. The touch was electric, a point of contact that grounded the surreal moment. His fingers traced a slow path down my arm to my wrist, his thumb pressing against my pulse point, which was hammering.

“See?” he murmured. “All here.”

His other hand came up, not for my body, but for my glasses. He slid them off my face with surprising gentleness, folded them, and set them on the console table beside us. The world went softly blurred, but he was a sharp, close presence, all defined lines and focused intensity.

“Better,” he said, his voice low. “Now I can see your eyes without the barrier. They’re greener than your picture.”

His hands came up to cradle my face. They were warm, slightly rough with calluses. His thumbs stroked my cheekbones. It was an unexpectedly tender gesture from the man with the cocky bio, and it undid me more than any grab would have. This wasn’t just a prelude to a fuck; it was a moment of recognition. He was studying me.

“Still curious?” he asked, his breath a warm wash against my lips.

I nodded, a tiny, helpless movement.

“Tell me.”

“Yes,” I breathed out.

He closed the final distance and kissed me.

It wasn’t soft. It was deep and claiming from the first second, his tongue sweeping into my mouth, his arms wrapping around me to pull my body flush against his. I gasped into the kiss, my own hands flying up to clutch at his shoulders. He was solid, unyielding muscle. He tasted like mint and the night and something indefinably male. The coil of anticipation in my gut snapped, flooding me with a wave of dizzying arousal. I kissed him back, matching his intensity, my fingers digging into the hard planes of his back. The quiet was annihilated, replaced by the wet sound of our mouths, our ragged breaths, the rustle of clothing.

He walked me backward until my knees hit the edge of my bed. We broke apart, breathing heavily. His dark eyes were hooded, intense, his lips slick and slightly parted.

“The shirt,” he said, his voice gravelly with want. “Off. Now.”

The earlier command was back, edged with heat. My fingers fumbled with the buttons of my henley. He watched, not helping, just drinking in my shaky performance, his eyes darkening with each inch of skin revealed. I got it off, let it fall to the floor. His gaze raked over my chest, my thinner frame, my own trail of hair leading into my underwear. There was no judgment, only a hungry appreciation that made me feel powerful, not exposed.

“Good,” he said. A simple word that felt like a reward. His own shirt followed, pulled over his head in one smooth, effortless motion. The torso from the photo was better in person—defined abs that flexed as he moved, a light dusting of dark hair across his pecs, shoulders that spoke of real strength, not just gym vanity. I wanted to touch, to taste, but I was pinned by his look.

He hooked his thumbs into the waistband of my boxer-briefs. “These too.”

“Leo…” I breathed, a last vestige of hesitation, not of desire, but of the sheer vulnerability of the moment.

“What?” He stilled, his eyes searching mine, his thumbs still resting on my hips. “Tell me no and I walk. Right now. Door’s right there. No drama.”

But I didn’t want him to walk. I wanted him closer than 0.0 miles. I wanted him inside. The conflict must have played out on my face because his expression softened, just a fraction, the sharp angles of his face relaxing.

“It’s just me,” he said, quieter, his voice a rumble in the space between us. “Just a guy you met on an app who thinks too much. Let go, Ben. Let’s both let go.”

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath that smelled like him, and nodded.

He pulled my underwear down, and I stepped out of them. I was naked, fully hard, exposed in the low light of my bedroom. I felt vulnerable, but the hungry, focused look on his face was a shield. He wanted this. He wanted me. Not just a body, but this specific, nervous, eager body in front of him.

He ran a hand down my chest, over my stomach, his fingers tracing my hip bones before wrapping around my erection. I jerked at the contact, a moan torn from my throat. His grip was firm, perfect, his thumb swiping over the head, spreading the bead of moisture there.

“See?” he said, stroking me slowly, his eyes locked on mine. “Your body knows what it wants. It’s just your brain that’s noisy. Let it be quiet.”

He dropped to his knees.

The sight was surreal—this gorgeous, powerful man on his knees before me, his face level with my cock. He didn’t tease. He took me into his mouth in one slow, deep, engulfing motion. My head fell back, a choked cry escaping me. His mouth was hot, wet, perfect. His tongue worked expertly along the underside as he began to move, his hands gripping my hips, holding me steady as he worked me with a skill that bordered on brutality. He wasn’t gentle; he was demanding, pulling responses from me I didn’t know I had in me. One of his hands slid back to grip my ass, kneading the flesh, pulling me deeper into his throat. My fingers tangled in his dark hair, not guiding, just holding on as he pushed me to the edge with terrifying speed. The only sounds were my ragged gasps, the wet, rhythmic suction, and his low, approving hum that vibrated through my entire being.

“Leo… I’m gonna…” I panted, my thighs trembling.

He pulled off with a wet pop, leaving me throbbing and desperate, glistening in the dim light. He looked up, his lips slick and swollen, his chin glistening. His eyes were dark pools of intent. “Not yet. I’m not done with you.”

He stood, kissed me again, deep and filthy, letting me taste myself on his tongue. The intimacy of it was shocking. Then he turned me around, pushing me forward gently until I was bent over the bed, my hands flat on the duvet. I heard the rustle of his sweatpants being pushed down, the tear of a foil packet. My whole body trembled with anticipation and a sharp spike of nerves. I was on display, arched and offered.

He leaned over me, his chest a warm, solid weight against my back, his mouth at my ear. His breath was hot. “You said versatile,” he murmured, a hand smoothing over the curve of my ass, his touch possessive. “What do you want right now, Ben? In this moment, with my cock in my hand and you like this? Tell me. Use your words.”

The dirty talk, the request for explicit consent amidst the raw carnality, shattered my last defenses. It was a paradox—clinical and brutally erotic—that undid me completely. “I want you,” I gasped into the bedding, pushing my hips back slightly. “I want to feel you. Inside. However you want. I want you to fuck me until I forget my own name.”

He groaned, a raw, approving sound. “Good. Honest. Now breathe.”

The cold slick of lube, then his fingers, pressing, circling, one slipping inside. It had been a while, and I was tight. He was patient but relentless, working me open with one, then two fingers, scissoring and crooking them until I was pushing back against his hand, begging with incoherent sounds, my cock leaking onto my duvet cover. He knew what he was doing, finding the spot that made my vision spark white, working it until I was a writhing, pleading mess.

Then he was there, the blunt, hot pressure of him replacing his fingers. He leaned over me again, blanketing me, his chest against my back, his mouth at the nape of my neck. “Breathe,” he commanded, and I did, a ragged, shuddering inhale. He pushed inside, a slow, inexorable invasion that burned and stretched and filled me utterly. I cried out, a raw sound of pleasure-pain, my fingers clawing at the duvet.

For a moment, we were both still, fused together, panting. The digital distance was gone. We were at 0.0 miles, negative miles, one entity. I could feel every inch of him, the heat of his skin, the pounding of his heart against my spine.

Then he moved.

It wasn’t making love. It was fucking, pure and simple. Deep, driving strokes that knocked the breath from my lungs and sent shockwaves of pleasure through my entire nervous system. He was strong, holding my hips in a vice grip, setting a relentless, pounding pace that had the bedframe creaking in protest. The sounds were obscene: the slick slap of skin on skin, my own ragged moans and choked sobs of pleasure, his low, guttural grunts with each thrust.

“That’s it,” he growled in my ear, his voice thick with exertion and awe. “Take it. You wanted me closer? This is as close as it gets. You feel that? You’re so fucking tight. So good.”

I was lost in a haze of sensation, the initial burn transformed into a white-hot pleasure so intense it bordered on pain. My cock, trapped between my stomach and the bed, leaked helplessly with each powerful thrust. I was babbling, “Please… god… Leo… don’t stop… more…”, a stream of consciousness that was pure id.

He snaked a hand around my front, finding my slick, neglected cock, stroking me in perfect, tight time with his punishing rhythm. The dual sensation was too much, an overload that short-circuited my brain. I shattered, coming with a broken, shouting cry, my body seizing around him, convulsing as I spilled over his hand and onto the bedding. My climax triggered his; with a final, brutal thrust that buried him to the hilt and a raw, shuddering groan muffled against my shoulder, he followed me over, his heat flooding me in pulsing waves.

We collapsed together onto the bed, a sticky, breathless, tangled heap of limbs. He was heavy on top of me, but I didn’t want him to move. The weight was an anchor, grounding me. The smell of sex and sweat and him was thick in the air. The frantic beating of my heart began to slow, syncing with the strong, steady rhythm of his against my back.

After a long, timeless moment, he softened and slipped out. He rolled off, lying beside me on his back. We stared at the ceiling in silence, the only sound our gradually calming breath. The post-coital awkwardness tried to descend, but it couldn’t find purchase. It was suffocated by the profound, stunned satisfaction that lay over us like a blanket.

He turned his head to look at me. His sharp features were softened, sated, his hair damp at the temples. A thin, silvery scar I hadn’t noticed before traced a faint line from the corner of his left eye back into his hairline. I stared at it, a sudden, intimate detail in the aftermath. Where did it come from? I didn’t ask.

“So,” he said, his voice hoarse.

“So,” I echoed, my own voice wrecked.

“Curiosity satisfied?”

I considered it. The physical need had been obliterated, thoroughly and spectacularly. But looking at him now, the stranger in my bed with the secret scar, a new curiosity stirred, deeper and more complicated. Who was he, beyond the torso and the sweatpants and the skilled mouth and the fear of quiet? “For now,” I said, surprising myself with the truth of it. “The quiet’s definitely gone.”

He smiled, that same devastating smile, but it was slower now, more real. “Mission accomplished. For both of us.”

He got up, a fluid movement of muscle and grace, and disappeared into my bathroom. I heard water running. He returned with two damp washcloths, warm and steamy. He handed one to me before using the other on himself. The gesture was unexpectedly domestic, a tender counterpoint to the animalistic frenzy of minutes before. He pulled his sweatpants back on but left his shirt off, then went to the living room, returning with two glasses of water from my kitchen. He handed me one.

We drank in silence, sitting up against the headboard. The cool water was a benediction.

“You’re not what I expected,” I finally said, my eyes tracing the lines of his torso, the scar, the way his Adam’s apple moved as he swallowed.

“Likewise.” He set his glass on the nightstand with a soft click. “You seemed… softer online. More contained. In person, you’re all fire. You burn hot and quiet. It’s a good combination.”

I blushed, grateful for the low light. “You bring it out. You’re… more than your bio.”

He glanced at me, a wry twist to his mouth. “The bio is a necessary filter. Gets rid of the time-wasters. But yeah. Sometimes the quiet isn’t about peace. It’s about… static. The kind that builds up behind your eyes.” He said it like it was a confession, then shook his head slightly, as if to clear it. “And you? What’s your story, Ben? Besides an excellent taste in band tees.”

We talked. For over an hour, we talked. It wasn’t the polite, getting-to-know-you chatter of a date. It was the easy, meandering conversation of two people who had already seen each other raw. He was an architect, but he specialized in restoring old, neglected buildings. “Giving forgotten spaces a new voice,” he said. I told him I was a copy editor for a series of painfully dry academic journals. “So I fight for the Oxford comma and against runaway participles. I make quiet things grammatically correct.”

He laughed, a genuine, rich sound that filled the room. “See? We’re both in the silence business. I break it, you punctuate it.”

We talked about music—our terrible, eclectic taste aligned in a weird harmony of post-punk and cheesy 80s synth-pop. We talked about the surreal, transactional nature of app culture, the way it could feel like shopping for humans, and the rare moments it transcended that. “Like tonight,” he said, not looking at me, tracing a pattern on my duvet with his finger.

He didn’t stay the night. As the deep blue outside the window began to lighten to indigo, he stirred. “I should go. Early site meeting. Old warehouse with a stubborn roof.”

A flicker of something—disappointment, maybe—passed through me, but it felt right. This wasn’t a sleepover. It was an event, perfectly contained. He dressed, and I watched, the ritual of it feeling as intimate as the sex. He put his jacket back on, and he looked like CloserNow again, the enigmatic stranger, but the edges were blurred now. I knew about the scar, his work, his war on quiet.

At the door, he turned. He cupped my face again, much like he did when he first arrived, his thumb stroking my cheek. He kissed me, slow and deep and surprisingly sweet. It felt like a promise, or maybe just a perfect, lingering punctuation mark.

“I’ll message you,” he said, his eyes searching mine.

“You’d better.” I tried for levity, but it came out soft.

He smiled, a little crooked, a little unsure for the first time all night. Then he was gone. The footsteps receded down the hall. The elevator dinged. Silence reclaimed my apartment, but it was a different silence. It wasn’t empty or loud. It was full. Saturated with memory and the ghost of his scent on my skin.

I crawled back into bed, the sheets still smelling like him, sex, and us. My body ached in the best possible way. My phone, charging on the nightstand, lit up with a notification. Not from the app, but a text message. From a new number.

Got home safe. The quiet here lost its edge. Forgot to say: the shirt’s still a tragedy. But the guy wearing it… he’s something else. – Leo

I smiled, holding the phone to my chest. I opened the app one last time, the blue light familiar on my tired face. His profile was still there. I tapped on the distance share, the gesture now loaded with meaning.

Leo: 3.1 miles away.

The circle was complete. He was back in his world, I was in mine. But the map had been redrawn. The space between the dots was no longer empty, intimidating distance; it was a thread, pulled taut with memory, sensation, and a hesitant, thrilling possibility. The frantic anticipation was gone, replaced by a warm, glowing aftermath that hummed in my bones, and the quiet, certain knowledge that the distance was just a number. It could always be closed again.