She took a long look at Josh. “Do you mind if I ask you something?”
Steve, who had already assembled a pile of bare bones, dropped another one on his plate. He tasted the sauce on his lips and could tell some dribbled on his chin. The food did nothing for his real hunger, but at least it distracted him from it. He pointed, and Dan passed him a napkin.
Josh made a little shrug and a lopsided grin to Genie’s question as he twirled his hair. Steve caught his glance and worried expression. This wasn’t going to be easy.
“Where are you from?” she asked.
“Quebec.”
“I mean what are you? French?”
By Genie’s intonation, she doubted French. French wasn’t it. She wanted more.
Josh startled and stammered. “What am I?”
“Excuse me, that was rude,” she said. “It’s just that you have such a cosmopolitan look, very handsome. Isn’t he?” Her eyes met Steve’s in confirmation. She stared at Josh in admiration, while Dan’s attention fell to his food.
Steve knew a little about it from their conversations in the purple light. It bothered Josh, who once said he resented questions like this because no simple answer existed. His appearance sometimes puzzled people concerned about such things. The hooded eyes were silent to their origin. An olive complexion, lost on the spectrum, suggested little of an old land. The full lips, lofty cheeks, and aquiline nose gave few clues from where they came, the dark wavy hair no sign. His people for generations followed the circus around the Mediterranean to cities near the shores, where Africa, Asia, and Europe met, too complicated to explain and unnecessary to understand.
“My family always traveled a lot, going way back, the circus, you know.”
“Oh, how interesting,” she said.
Steve sucked on a bone and applied a new layer of sauce to his face before he smiled at both, Josh and Genie, two of his favorite people, and they got along so well. Dan passed him a fresh napkin. The three of them gave him a funny look as he wiped his face.
“Are you seeing anyone, Josh?” she asked.
“No.” Josh nibbled at some bread.
Josh’s answer alarmed Steve, but on second thought, it was true, anyway until tonight. He was the next guy Josh would see and the next in line for Genie’s inquisition.
“What about you, Steve?” she asked.
“No.” He slammed a mouthful of beans down his throat.
“Are either of you each other’s type?” she asked.
Dan squirmed and stared at his food.
“What’s your type, Josh?” She turned to him.
“I like a man who’s kind and patient, mature, and well behaved.” He took a sip of water and glanced Steve’s way. The cup came down with an odd expression. “On second thought, can I have a beer?”
“I’ll get it.” Dan got up.
“I know someone like that,” she said. “Steve, you have a little bit on your chin.”
He wiped. Josh seldom drank, especially beer. Maybe this meal, or the circumstances, gave him a thirst for it. Dan came back and set the mug down.
Josh took a gulp. “Thank you.”
It was coming Steve’s way. A devil in him pricked up the hair on his forearms and whispered in his ear. He would wait until the time was right. Then Genie delivered the question.
“What’s your type, Steve?”
He watched Josh, who no doubt more for diversion than thirst, lifted the glass to his lips. The moment Josh drank, Steve readied his gravelly voice. Just as Josh swallowed and the Adam’s apple bobbed, Steve spoke. “Limber, lean, and tight.”
Josh choked, as if those words entered his ear and redirected the beer down his windpipe. It must have gone up his nose, because it sprayed all over his plate and almost to Steve’s plate next to it. Josh hacked.
“Oh, no!” Genie said.
“Don’t worry.” Steve slapped Josh’s back.
Genie got up from across the table and joined them. Josh stood and bent over from coughing. When Steve got up, Genie pushed him aside. She put her arm around Josh. “Come with me.” She led him toward the kitchen.
Steve followed them until Genie glared at him. “No. You sit down. I’ll take care of this. I’m a nurse.” She grabbed Josh’s hand and pulled him out of the room. He coughed all the way.
Dan’s wide and bewildered eyes stared at the table. He passed Steve a napkin. “How are the ribs?”
“Great, as usual. I ate too much.”
“Yeah, you might have said too much too.”
“Maybe.”
Dan looked up at him. “Will you take Genie to the show tonight? She has the tickets. I have to be there early, Josh too. You and Genie can come later.”
“Sure.” Steve had been meaning to ask something. “Is it dangerous?”
“Choking? Not usually, if they’re making noise.”
Josh’s coughs sounded from the other room with a short break in between.
“No. The trapeze, how dangerous is it?”
“There’s some risk. Let’s face it, that’s what sells tickets.”
“Have you ever had an accident?”
“Not in my show, but in some of the others. It happens. Did you hear something? There was a bad one a couple years ago.”
“Josh told me about it.” As soon as he said it, he knew he shouldn’t have.
“Josh did?”
“Um, did I say Josh?”
“I think so.”
Genie came back and Josh followed. “It’s all clear now,” she said. She sat him down and took her seat.
Josh looked at him funny and put a hand on his shoulder. “She knows everything. Genie and I are having lunch tomorrow.”
Dan chuckled.
“Where are we going?” Steve asked. “That sounds like fun.”
“You’re not invited,” Genie said.
Josh nibbled his rib. “Dan, can I have a ride to the show tonight when you go?”
“Sure. You’re not eating much. Nothing you like?”
“It’s delicious.” He finished the rib and broke the bread.
“Have some more.” Dan slid the platters over to Josh’s side of the table.
“I shouldn’t. Not when I’m performing.” Josh took another rib.
Steve finished his meal and enjoyed it more now that Genie had won. Her mission accomplished; she would have no more questions for him. He put an arm around Josh’s shoulder, nothing to hide anymore. Josh drank half his beer, and the tension in his muscles relaxed under Steve’s embrace.
Dan cleared the table. Genie made coffee and brought a light parfait desert, which they discussed as they ate, the heavier topics out of the way. Dan looked at the time.
“We’d better get going, Josh,” he said.
“I’m ready whenever.” Josh took the last sip of his coffee.
“Okay, let’s hit the road.”
They got up. Dan kissed Genie on the cheek like he always did when he left. Josh exchanged the same with Steve. Then they were gone, and Steve sat back down with Genie.
“Wasn’t that sweet?” she asked.
“Yeah, he makes me crazy. So, you and Josh are having lunch tomorrow. What’s that all about?”
“Oh, nothing. After our little chat in the kitchen, we discovered some things we have in common, and decided to keep in touch. I wonder if there’s a movie on tonight?”
“We don’t have time for that before the show.”
“I meant after the show. Do you and Josh want to come over for a nightcap?” She smirked at him.
She loved to bust his balls. He wasn’t having it. “Yeah, right.”
“I’m happy for you, Steve. I like Josh. You better treat him well. I’ll come after you if you don’t. Consider this fair warning.”
He thought she was his friend. Now this. He would ask what they talked about but wasn’t sure he really wanted to know, and it probably was everything. She might tell him anyway. Let it lie. It didn’t matter.
He finished the c
offee and cleared the table. Genie put the dishes in the washer before they headed for the show. They got there early, nice seats.
Josh’s performance amazed Steve. Summersaults mid-air timed perfectly to the swinging trapeze. Josh grasped the bar at the last moment. The audience gasped. Steve kept his shirt untucked.
Chapter 27
The time approached. Josh lay on his bed. Steve sat on a chair nearby, fresh from another cold shower. One of many he’d said. Undressed and prepared, Josh waited. No discussion, too distracted, his mind drifted, but eyes remained fixed on Steve and the old picture beside him.
Lightning flashed behind the curtains that faced the mountain, where storm clouds often grew this time of year, or maybe someone flashed their brights on the street. A distant rumble of thunder rolled by barely audible, or was it his imagination? It could have been a passing car.
Stormy that day, too, when he took this picture that sat on the bureau beside Steve, the winds had picked up. Sailing near the gulf with that boy he might have loved, he himself was but a boy then. They’d barely survived the storm, the waves so high above the deck. Across the wide St. Lawrence, the boat tossed in the air and tipped to its sides.
Josh’s longing fought with fear. At ease with flying and little afraid of anything else, he’d stopped short of romance. It scared him.
He’d survived many falls and healed the broken limbs, though these were only bones. More protective of his heart, he’d never dared to fall in love. But with Steve, whom he learned to trust, he opened to desire and accepted the risk.
His hair twirled on a finger. Though afraid of love, not so with sex. In the slight time the curse allotted, he’d practiced it. With men who pleased him, he went through the motions, learned all the moves, the simple to the more athletic. It was all just that, an exercise. Sometimes a workout, at others a steady routine, but always little more than an act.
The purpose was pleasure, his. He used a partner to trigger it, but it was his, not theirs. They possessed nothing over him, and he owed them nothing in return.
They were but an instrument, a mechanical device, a tool to stir his passion for his own pleasure. He disclosed the curse to none of them, though perhaps they sensed it before they drifted off. Only with Steve, who stayed, had he shared its nature.
He stretched his legs. Only Steve he sought to please above himself. Only Steve he loved, and what was love but pleasure shared, given to another. In the narrow space between longing and fear, he surrendered.
The clock moved forward, and with each minute anticipation grew, like thunderclouds rising on the mountains. The air stilled, breathless. As sometimes before a storm, the atmosphere sweated. He wiped his brow.
His heart thundered. Longing, like a fog, enveloped him. Endless as the sea, it rolled, persistent as the tide. The clouds rose overhead as the minute approached. Then it was time.
The storm blew in, with Steve on knees before him. Josh lay facing the swell. Pushed back on arms of the wind, with the first gust, limber legs bent, thighs to sides and feet in air. The scent of salt hung over him.
Gales moaned and threatened. Shipwrecked eyes met. Lips clung to farewell kisses, and hairs stood on end, so much lightening in the air. They must take shelter.
The tide rose on rolling waves, whose supple hips arched while vessels listed. He steered Steve’s ship to port and docked it on the slip. As Josh harbored him, Steve’s body hunkered over his and gave cover from the surging tempest.
Harsh waves crashed. Safe from the cold, all wrapped up with Steve, he weathered it. Fear melted to relief. Though wary of their elemental love, together as one, he clung to Steve for refuge from the storm. “I’ve wanted you. I’ve wanted this.”
Steve responded more groan than syllable, more breath than voice. “Yeah.”
“Do you want me the way I want you?” Josh waited for reply.
Beyond the heavy breathing, silence echoed in Josh’s ears.
The answer stung. Tension built until it hurt and begged release. He reached up and clutched Steve’s hair to make him stop. As he pulled at the strands, a wave of calm washed over Josh’s hand and flowed down his arm to his core, where he found the ring’s meaning. “I love you.” These words were strangers to his tongue. A life of their own, they cast their spell, and he opened up wide for Steve, softer and warmer than for any man before. Not only down there but somewhere in the middle of Josh’s chest, a place expanded broad enough to hold the sky. It blew his mind, as sometimes people liked to say in the States.
An octave lower than the last, Steve replied with a sigh.
“Did you hear me?” Josh gasped.
Steve moaned.
“Tell me you did.”
“Huhhh.”
Josh tapped him on the temple with his knuckles.
Steve startled like he’d heard thunder. “Wha…What?”
“Listen to me. It’s different this time.”
Steve lurched and fell as the floods rushed in. Josh said no more but followed to abandon. He lay adrift. His legs sprawled with Steve asleep on him. Too soon for Josh, sleep called him too.
Under Steve’s snoring weight, Josh came to his senses from la petite mort. He reflected. No storm. His arm stretched out. Away from Steve’s sweaty body, the air was dry. No wind but a breeze from the fan, the sea still three hundred miles away.
Hardly a ship, Steve’s cock lay soft against his thigh. Unremarkable even when erect, except that it was Steve’s and now his. He’d made it part of him. The connection struck a pleasure point inside him, maybe the prostate, but it touched a place intangible, where Josh would always hold him.
Like the bar against the crook of his knee when he flew, it hurt a bit at first until he relaxed into it and let Steve take him to the top of the arc and back again. He loved flying. He loved Steve with him, on him, in him. Once again, his imagination ran away, and he gladly followed.
Chapter 28
He woke beside Steve, who slept. The Tuesday sunrise brought for Josh all he could dream before him. Without constraint he studied Steve’s body and caressed him with his eyes.
First the face so peaceful, thick lashes pointed to full cheeks. Lips pouted. Adam’s apple bobbed with breaths. The broad neck branched from sturdy shoulders.
A heavy arm crossed the firm chest, while Steve’s strong hand on furrowed belly rose and fell with the air. Long fingers lifted and waved with each fall…
On sculpted thigh, cock lay sated. He stirred. Eyes opened.
“Looking at me?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Why not?”
“Okay then.” Steve sat up and stretched his arms above his head. A long yawn flexed muscles in his back and shoulders. As he squinted, his nose wrinkled, and he rubbed a matted head of hair.
“That’s how you wake up?” Josh asked.
“Who says I’m awake?”
“You look awake.” Josh watched from where he lay.
“It takes a while.” Steve fell back on his side, face near, eyes meeting. His hand reached for Josh’s cheek and rested there. “Love you.”
“Love you too.” Josh surprised himself with those words, as strange to his ears as to his mouth. They tickled his tongue until he smiled. Steve had spoken them with familiarity. Maybe someday Josh would too. Until then he would pretend. The hand fell from Josh’s face, and Steve’s eyes drifted shut, which saddened Josh when they closed.
Time for a shower, Josh got up. In the bath down the hall, he cleaned himself up with a douche and ran the water. Soon it was warm. With a brush of his arm, the curtain closed across the tub, and he stepped in. The night replayed in his mind while the spray trickled over his head with its constant patter. Then the sound of a stronger stream overtook it. He pulled the curtain open a bit and peaked out. Steve stood by the john and urinated.
“Are you looking at me?” He finished and shook. “Can I come in?”
“It’s warm.”
“Good.” Steve steppe
d in the shower.
Josh took the soap and lathered Steve’s body. First, he focused on that favorite spot, where Steve’s lower back met the butt. The curve of his spine suggested a letter S. It suspended the firm and full cheeks so high that the top of them formed a little shelf as it were, on which Josh rested the side of his hand and leaned the palm against the small of the back.
Steve tried to turn his head and look but struggled to see. He clearly couldn’t, that far behind him. “What’s going on back there?”
“Nothing. It’s just my favorite part. Do you have a favorite part?” Josh asked.
“On me? You know what that is.” Steve’s cock lifted its head, like it somehow knew they were talking about it.
Josh grabbed it. “No. Not on you. On me.” He kissed Steve’s shoulder and held him front and back.
Steve turned sideways and looked down on him from that shoulder. “I like your neck.” Steve completed the turn and faced him with a kiss to his throat. Hands caressed it.
Josh lost hold of Steve’s cock, but he held on to the back. His arm wrapped around Steve’s waist, palm on butt, until Steve stopped kissing him and pulled the hand away from its resting place. Josh shook his arm free of Steve’s grip and returned it to his favorite spot.
Then Steve reached around Josh’s waist and grabbed his ass like he owned it. “Is everything okay down there? Tell me if it’s ever too much.”
“Don’t worry. I would let you know. I don’t need an invitation.”
He tried to keep his hand on its little shelf, but Steve brushed it off and held the wrist. Tension grew in their grasp, not to the level of an arm wrestle but in that direction until it came to a stalemate. Steve let go, got out, and grabbed a towel.
Josh turned off the water. He opened the curtain wide and stood dripping. “I want it all. I want you the way you had me.”
“You mean you want to fuck me.”
Only one towel between them, Steve patted him dry, starting with the chest. Josh almost took the towel away from him but waited. He liked the touch.
The Curse of Flight Page 13
