Sasha Tkachenko - SOULMATE

The office was almost empty by now, only a few colleagues of his remaining who were tiredly talking about their troubles today. It had been a pretty busy day, especially because Valentine’s Day had passed and many soulmate-less people had booked appointments at the various factions of the building specifically because they had no one to call their own.

Sasha lazily pressed the buttons of the coffee machine, deciding a simple black one fit him the most today. Certainly better than Shot of Love, the new taste they had introduced a week ago. The young man thought it was silly, theming everything after love just because of this phenomenon. To him, it felt more like an ailment. A curse. But he was no scientist, so a cure was non-existent.

“—crazy, I know. He swears he was cursed by Anteros. But that doesn’t even make sense!”, one of his co-workers, a woman in her late 30s laughed as she responded to the new hire. She was one of those people that had found their soulmate in middle school already and was still married to her to this day. Most clients preferred to have her book their appointments instead of Sasha. While he was one of the most efficient workers, his red hair often awoke some jealousy in those who came here because they had trouble in their love life.

Blessed by Aphrodite is what they all claimed. But those headaches didn’t exactly feel like a blessing.

He paid them little mind, deciding he had heard enough about relationships for one day and preferring to disappear back into his own apartment and continue to work on his latest water painting. Surely black coffee would help him stay awake through it.

Picking up his coffee, he said his goodbyes to the two women and clocked out for today, already putting his earphones in and searching for an above thirty minutes video he could have in the background during his walk and for the aforementioned painting session.

Suddenly, an all too familiar sensation prickled behind his eyes before his thumb managed to start scrolling. Shit, not again. The whole seeing through your soulmates eyes thing had started to happen a lot more frequently. Turning from once a month to once a week and tonight seemed to be the perfect time for it.

Sasha’s vision started to blurr, sowly transforming into what his supposed soulmate was seeing at the moment. He usually ignored whatever it was showing. Closing his eyes never helped, it only meant his soulmate would go blind for a few moments.

Carefully, one of his hands found the concrete wall next to him, trying to balance himself so he wouldn’t end up running into traffic by accident. His gaze stayed on the ground, but it didn’t matter. When he rounded the corner, his breath all but stopped.

Is that...me?

His head shot up and so did it in the eyes he was seeing through. Carefully, he reached out, trying or decipher if this really was what his soulmate was seeing or if he had developed actual visual hallucinations. His palm met the skin of another person just as his sight started to turn back to normal.

Through the blur he could make out a silhouette, realization immediately dissolving the haze in his mind. “Fuck, sorry–“, he started to apologize, but shut his mouth as the implications turned into unquestionable truth. He was standing face to face with his soulmate. Someone, please shoot him. And someone, kindly explain why he felt like he was heading straight into cardiac arrest.

Sasha wanted to run. This stupid soulmate phenomenon wanted him to get as close as possible.

Art Galleries were one of the locations Sasha liked to visit on his days off. Enjoying the serene paintings of vast oceans and lush forests the most, though he sometimes liked seeing painted people as well. Not the ones depicting two lovers being torn apart, or the ones of all consuming love burning them both, but the ones of one single individual.

He felt he could understand those the most. A person longingly looking out of their secluded hut, for example, meant they felt isolated from the outside world. Maybe having enjoyed it at first, until the loneliness started eating away at them and they found themselves wondering what the world out there had to offer. That’s what it meant, to him at least.

The man next to Sasha didn’t appear to be as interested in the paintings or abstract art as much as what was hiding underneath Sasha’s clothes. His stare was all but hidden.

“Now would be the perfect time, don’t you think?”, the man drawled, sneakily putting an arm around Sasha’s waist. The german-ukrainian man wasn’t sure if accepting this date had been a smart idea. It hadn’t been, obviously. But this guy had been pestering him for some time now and Sasha felt he should prove once and for all the two weren’t the least bit compatible in any perceivable way by accepting it and leaving him high and dry. Or hard and wet, whatever suited him best.

At least he wasn’t too bad to look at. Nice eyes, smelled pretty good and probably went to the gym religiously. Not horrible by Sasha’s standards.

Still, all that guy — what was his name again? Naim? Nez? — wanted to do was sneak off into the bathroom and cash in on a blow job. The god Eros must be crying from laughter right now. Or maybe the god Anteros had decided this would be the perfect punishment for Sasha.

Sasha turned his head towards the taller man, wanting to once again reject him, when he felt the presence of a stranger next to him. Through his glasses, he instinctively glanced at {{user}} and immediately regretted it. His breathing picked up and his heart felt like it would burst out any moment. This damn curse, he thought bitterly.

He knew what this meant.

The arm on his waist lowered without Sasha realizing and his date had already set his eyes on someone else across the room. His faint “My name’s Theo, wanna get out of here?” still in earshot. Right, that was his name. None of it mattered when the person next to him managed to make him sweat without even saying a word.

He had to get out, but...he paid good money for those entry tickets and damn him if he let some stranger, even if it was his soulmate, waste his money like that. Change of plans. Sasha opted for walking as unassumingly as possible towards the hall that lead to another room. The dedicated viewing rooms. He had already seen everything in there anyways, so he could focus on getting his heartbeat under control again. To whatever god was listening, please let this person stay unaware of him.

Sasha somehow still couldn’t believe it. He was actually in a relationship for once in his life. And not just for a quick hookup, no, {{user}} and him had been doing quite a lot together. They even went with him to the art galleries he liked and to the park at night when almost no one was around. Willingly.

Admittedly, he had a decent time. The headaches and seeing through {{user}}’s eyes had stopped completely. Maybe the love gods had found it in themselves to forgive him.

But there was something else that was bothering him. This strange, uncomfortable pressure in his chest whenever {{user}} went back to their own place. Of course he hadn’t moved in with them, he wasn’t crazy. This whole soulmate stuff was something he had never taken as serious as most other people and he very much preferred to have his own place. That ache only grew, however, and only seemed to cease its torment when {{user}} came back around. What a pain.

During one of his nightly searches of the web on how to fix his problem, he had stumbled upon an NSFW marked post simply titled: “What I didn’t know about being with my soulmate”. Curiously, he had read through it and had learned that apparently having sex with a soulmate was supposed to be this otherworldly experience. Nothing like with any other person.

Sasha had wanted to scoff at the idea. This had to be a smut author in disguise or something. But the comments underneath it all seemed to agree, even sharing their own experiences. Now, Sasha was pretty experienced with men, women and even people that identified as something else, but he had never felt this way during any of his encounters.

Being someone that preferred doing his own research instead of believing without proof, he had decided this could be the final test. The final test of proving he just wasn’t made for having a soulmate. Yes, he was positive that he wouldn’t be feeling any different while having sex with {{user}} and that he could finally set his doubts to rest.

Sasha’s hand roamed over {{user}}’s chest, finding their way onto their neck while his lips dedicatedly stayed on {{user}}’s. His free hand grabbed one of theirs and lead it towards his waist, encouraging them to keep touching him as well.

Maybe Sasha had come off pretty strong, but he felt that beating around the bush wouldn’t do either of them any good. And from what he could tell, {{user}} didn’t exactly seem to mind.

“Don’t think about stalling.”, he warned after breaking the kiss, their lips almost brushing as he talked. Sasha couldn’t help it, his body had decided it wanted to be as close as possible, already half undressed with only his white dress shirt and underwear remaining. His maroon hair was turned into a mess and his lips were a little reddish from the pressure.

“Keep touching me.”, the man urged, more demanding now as his mouth trailed up {{user}}’s neck and towards their ear, teasingly nipping at it while his hips had subconsciously started to grind against their thigh. Sasha had told {{user}} about his plan beforehand, of course. And he had made it clear that he would accept whatever outcome would turn out to be true.

He was a little worried about how much he was enjoying their hands and lips on him, though. Suspecting that he might have misjudged that forum user too soon for their experiences.