What We Share With Our Enemies
We rarely talk about the sacred geometry of an enemy. Not just the ones who punch you in the playground or roll their eyes in the meeting or post your worst photo with a smug caption. I mean the real ones. The ones you grow up next to, breathe the same schoolyard air as, rage against in silence. The ones who know just how to wound because they are cut from the same cloth, only worn inside out.
Itâs a strange intimacy, hating someone. An energy exchange that sticks to the skin. A private war with public rules.
I think of Sam Morningside. Not his real name, but his real body, yes. Year 9, Birrong Boys High School, western Sydney. Same year. Same field. Different species.
He had the body of a man before the rest of us could shave. Barrel chest. Bulging thighs. A voice that broke like thunder, mid-season. I was the runt in the scrum, literal and social. Too bookish, too bright, too brittle. He called me "professor" when he wasnât calling me worse. I called him âapeâ under my breath. We played side by side in Rugby Union, but never in step.
Until Year 9 end of year camp. Nelson Bay. The storm that night was cinematic. Sheets of rain against nylon walls, the air heavy with sea salt and secret urges. Everyone paired off, and somehow, we ended up alone. Just me and Sam, in a borrowed tent with cheap zippers and no moral compass.
We didnât speak much. There was no seduction. Just the silence between lightning strikes. Just his arm brushing mine as we both pretended to sleep. Just the weight of his body rolling, casually, closer.
It happened like a dare that no one said aloud.
One hand on the hem of his shorts. The other on the back of my head. I reached without questioning. I reached because I wanted to reach. He moaned. Not in pain, not in pleasure, just a sound like shock leaving the body. His cock tasted like sweat, salt and sea air. He came too quickly, and I swallowed like I was hiding evidence.
He didnât thank me. I didnât ask why.
In the morning, he pulled up his boardies and covered his cock, and headed for the beach. We never spoke of it. But something softened. He never quite mocked me the same way again. Never defended me, no. But he didnât laugh when the others did. And that absence was its own kind of grace.
Years later, in a Rushcutters Bay apartment with chipped paint and a mattress on the floor, I fucked a boy named Jude Milton. Also not his real name. He wasnât special. Just tall enough. Just clean enough. His best friend Byron, though, was the one I really knew. Knew in the way enemies know each other. Knew like a mirror. Byron hated me with opera-level drama, voice pitched high and sharp. I hated him back with silent precision.
So I fucked Jude, purely for spite. Every thrust a kind of poetry. Every moan an open letter to the boy who could not stand the sight of me. Jude was sweet, pliable. He said things like âyouâre different than I thoughtâ and âByronâs going to freak.â But I never asked if he told him. I left before the sun came up, jeans still damp, dignity questionable.
It wasnât revenge. It wasnât even sex. It was performance. A war dance in a new arena. And maybe that makes me a monster. But enemies will do that to you. They pull you out of yourself. They make you forget you were ever soft.
But not always.
There was the day at Rookwood, when I was thirteen and grief had split me sideways. My friend Simon Jenson had killed himself. Everyone came to the funeral. Parents, peers, teachers, kids too young to understand what the word meant. Rookwood Crematorium, rose garden, summer heat. I was sitting in the dust of the dead, trying to make sense of the silence heâd left behind. The other boys were somewhere else, laughing, throwing sticks.
And then Jack Holbrook appeared. My actual nemesis. My Moriarty. We werenât opposites so much as parallel nightmares. Both clever. Both cruel. Both constantly drawing swords with our mouths. He said things that bit and bled. I returned fire.
But that day, he just sat beside me. No venom. No smirk. Just silence. And after a while, he placed one hand on mine. Brief. Awkward. Human. It was the only time I saw his eyes wet.
We went back to being enemies. But it was never as vicious. Never as performative. That touch made something impossible to un-know.
And thatâs what I want to say here.
Enemies are not the opposite of friends. Theyâre a kind of sibling. Born from proximity and difference. Raised in tension. We battle because we know each other too well. Or want to. Or never dared to.
Thereâs a kind of love in it. A twisted, sideways affection. A bruised tenderness. And sometimes, for a moment, the war stops. In a tent. On a mattress. By a grave.
We donât talk enough about what lives inside those pauses.
The hand held in secret. The cock sucked in silence. The boy you swore youâd never understand, offering you stillness by the ashes.
These are not stories of reconciliation. No one forgives anyone. But for a flicker in time, the war ceases, and something quieter takes its place.
We all have someone weâd kneel for, just once, when no one is watching.
Even if only to wound. Even if only to wonder. Even if only to remember that once, briefly, they werenât a monster.
Just a boy in a storm. Just a name whispered in revenge. Just a rival holding space for your grief.
And if you ask me whether it mattered, Iâll say yes. Every time.
Because sometimes the only thing sharper than hate is the memory of being held by the hands that dealt it.