“Hey, I can hear you,” Zinnah whined. Then she perked up. “Maybe the three of us can --”
“No!” Elorien and Dario said in unison.
Zinnah’s balance deserted her and she collapsed on her backside with a painful thud.
“No need to get nasty about it,” she pouted.
* * *
Dario called for a taxi to take Zinnah home. Once she had been escorted out to the cab, protesting drunkenly, they spent the rest of the day in bed. Dario couldn’t get enough of Elorien, coercing the elf back to bed if he expressed even the faintest interest in exploring his surroundings. Elorien willingly complied.
Eventually, however, even elves had to eat.
Dario’s hired help had cleaned up after the party and there were trays of leftover canapés wrapped with cling film in the fridge. Dario took out a tray and wolfed down a couple as Elorien stared at a piece of puffed pastry topped with some brown paste and half a black olive. He nibbled at the edge. Then spat it out.
“By the Holy Tree, what is this?” he choked, removing the crumbs from his mouth.
Dario took the canapé and bit into it. “Anchovy,” he said, throwing a couple more into his mouth.
Elorien looked at the tray with distaste. “How can you partake of this rancid meal?”
Dario sniffed at the tray. “They haven’t gone off yet.”
As Elorien raised an eyebrow, Dario turned back to the fridge. “Why don’t you try this?” he said, bringing out another tray.
Elorien picked up a stick of curled-up celery and looked dubiously at the assortment of dips. He poked the celery into some avocado dip and licked it. He put the celery down and shook his head.
“There’s not much else,” Dario said, rummaging in a cupboard. “Unless you want a protein shake?”
Elorien eyed the powder dubiously. “You eat this?”
“With milk or fruit juice. Shall I make you one?”
Elorien’s eyes went wide and he clapped his hands over his ears when Dario turned on the blender. He gritted his teeth at the noise.
“I have a few every day, maintains my muscle mass.” Dario hadn’t noticed the elf’s reaction as he turned off the blender and proudly poured it out for him.
Elorien sipped the concoction. Dario took back the glass as the elf smiled painfully, walked to the sink, and spat it out.
“I could order some pizza,” Dario suggested helpfully.
But Elorien was shaking his head in horror before he’d even finished explaining what pizza was.
“It’s a wonder Guntoras survived here as long as he did,” Elorien muttered to himself as he paced around the kitchen.
“What do elves eat?” Dario asked anxiously. “I can get anything ordered in.”
He couldn’t bear the thought of them leaving the house. He wouldn’t expose Elorien to the paparazzi, who would appear like flies around a rotting corpse the minute they stepped out of the front gate.
“Fruit,” Elorien said firmly. “Very fresh fruit.”
Not knowing any fruit shops, much less one that delivered, Dario called his assistant.
“Aren’t you supposed to be shooting a commercial today?” she asked. “The production company’s called me at least three times this morning. Where are you?”
Dario had heard the telephone ringing but had ignored it. Twenty-two messages were already blinking on his answering machine.
He watched Elorien walk about his living room, stopping to stare at the huge poster hanging on the wall over the fireplace. In the poster, Dario was leaning back against the side of a pick-up wearing a cowboy hat, his bare torso slicked with sweat, thumbs hooked over the waist of his jeans and hands splayed over his thighs pointing to the definite bulge at his groin. It was the jeans ad that had first made Hollywood sit up and notice.
But Dario could only see Elorien’s wide-shouldered back and his firm, high ass. His groin stirred as he imagined plunging his cock inside.
He turned back to the phone. “I’m not leaving the house. Tell everyone I’m sick,” he whispered. “And order me some fruit.”
“What? What kind of fruit?”
“Two of everything they’ve got.”
“Two pounds or two pieces?”
Dario suddenly put down the receiver as he realised that Elorien was standing beside him, smiling quizzically. He didn’t want the elf mixed up in his world. Elorien was just too -- too pure for that.
“A strange device,” Elorien observed, looking down at the phone. “In some aspects you humans are very ingenious.”
Innocent he might be, Dario thought, but not that pure.
He took his hand and led him to the couch. “Let me show you just how ingenious,” he grinned.
* * *
Elorien woke with the early morning sun streaming over his face. He and Dario had fallen asleep on the soft leather couch and the sun came shining in from the French windows leading to the porch. Elorien shifted and eased himself away from Dario, whose head was resting on his chest.
“No pictures!” Dario muttered before rolling over on his side.
Sitting on the edge of the couch, Elorien surveyed the room. It was covered in fruit.
A funny little man had arrived the day before laden with at least ten carrier bags containing an amazing assortment of fruit. Elorien hadn’t recognised most of it. Dario had unpacked the fruit in the kitchen, cut it up into small pieces and fed it to him.
Elorien hadn’t had the heart to tell him the fruit was long dead and tasted like cardboard. Dario had looked so happy. It was a pity to destroy the illusion.
When Elorien had politely eaten his fill, Dario had playfully lobbed a strawberry at him. Elorien had gasped and stared at him, shocked at the disrespect to his person.
Dario grinned. “You don’t like strawberries?” he asked innocently. “Here, have a piece of pineapple.” And he threw a pineapple ring at him.
Elorien pulled off the pineapple ring, which was swinging around his pointed ear. Then he angrily lobbed it back at him. And received an overripe piece of mango right in his face.
“Food fight!” Dario shouted.
For the next ten minutes they’d pelted each other with the fruit, running around the living room and using the couches as barricades. They took pot shots at each other with apples, pears, bananas, oranges, lemons, mandarins, blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, pieces of mango, pineapple, and avocado.
Eventually they retreated to the kitchen to de-rind more fruit as ammunition, continuing with round two.
Elorien had the time of his life.
Finally, he’d cornered Dario behind the coffee table and squashed a soggy handful of passion fruit pulp in his face. Dario, openmouthed and laughing, had swallowed most of it.
“Concede that I am the victor!” Elorien mock-threatened him.
“OK, you win,” Dario laughed, shaking his head like a shaggy dog so that bits of fruit sprayed off him and onto Elorien.
Elorien laughed heartily. It was then that he was struck with a painful sensation in his chest. His breath whooshed out of his lungs and he collapsed back onto the floor, giddy and winded.
“Elorien!” Dario scrambled to his side, alarmed.
Elorien’s heart was beating fast. He stared at Dario as he leaned over him. The boy was beautiful. He was kind, gentle, and fun. Elorien had never experienced anyone like that before. Never.
“Let me get an ambulance,” Dario said, eyes huge.
Elorien restrained him with a hand on his arm as Dario turned away. “I am well,” he said gently. He sat up. “It is just all the -- emotion.”
Just like that, Elorien knew he was in love. It had been as if his heart had burst open.
Dario sat back on his heels, frowning. “Are you sure?”
Elorien smiled. He caught Dario around the back of the neck and pulled him close. Dario’s lips, covered in passion fruit juice, had never tasted better. He pulled Dario down on top of him, cupping his ass in his hands. Their skin, wet with fruit juice,
slid slickly against each other. Elorien could feel Dario’s cock hardening against his thigh, matching his own erection.
Elorien rolled Dario over, straddling his hips, his own cock bouncing up against his stomach. Dario grasped Elorien’s thick staff in his hand and stroked it with long, hard pulls. Elorien groaned, closing his eyes to savour the sensation. Dario gently brought him closer, lifting his head off the floor to guide Elorien’s cock into his mouth. Elorien moaned as Dario’s lips clamped firmly over the fleshy knob, his tongue sliding in wet circles around the engorged head. He felt his orgasm cresting and held Dario’s head in his hands as his hips bucked, pumping uncontrollably into his mouth as his seed burst forth. Gasping, he stared down at Dario as he swallowed the mouthful of cum, his lips working over the length of his shaft to draw out every drop.
“You’ve unmanned me,” Elorien said as he withdrew his spent cock from Dario’s mouth.
Dario grinned, his hands clamped around Elorien’s ass. “I could try manning you again,” he said, playfully licking Elorien’s limp cock.
The elf laughed. “I think it’s my turn.”
He shifted his knees down the length of Dario’s body and leaned over to nibble at Dario’s neck. Dario sighed pleasurably and placed his arms under his head, settling back in relaxed submission to Elorien’s ministrations.
Elorien traced his tongue over Dario’s neck and powerful chest, slipping to suck each tight nipple, gently biting. He continued downward, tonguing over the muscled six-pack and down the belly following the blond arrow of hair to his groin. Along the way he licked every ounce of fruit juice off Dario’s body till Elorien felt the hard shaft of his cock quivering against his cheek. Dario moaned as Elorien chose to ignore it, lifting it back to his belly to suck on the heavy balls beneath. Dario’s hips moved restlessly when Elorien finally drew the head of Dario’s cock into his mouth.
His tongue flicking, Elorien licked the juice off Dario’s cock, lingering over the thick veins on the underside, sliding up and down along its length with his tongue. By the time his mouth finally closed around the thick shaft cock, the boy’s hips were moving mindlessly.
“Shush,” Elorien said, holding his hips still.
Panting, Dario lifted his head to watch as Elorien’s lips closed over his shaft again. The elf worked expertly over the slick skin, drawing more and more of the throbbing staff into his mouth ’til all of it was deep in his throat. Dario watched as Elorien began to move in firm strokes over the length of his cock, sucking the purple head and then plunging down to take all of Dario’s length into his mouth. It took only four strokes before Dario felt his balls tighten and his orgasm crash through his body, his seed shooting down the elf’s throat.
Dario was breathing heavily as Elorien rose again to his knees and looked at him with a triumphant smile.
“Well,” Dario said happily, “I think we’ve cleared up the question of what you like to eat.”
Chapter Five
The Naked Elf
Elorien smiled to himself as he remembered the night before. They’d had sex a couple more times before falling exhausted into a deep sleep on the couch. He felt sticky but enormously elated. What he needed now was a bath.
As he padded around the couch to climb the stairs to the bathroom, Elorien stopped and looked out the French windows. The sea sparkled outside, waves gently kissing the golden sand of the beach. The sky shone, the sea beckoned, and he forgot about the bathroom as he opened the porch windows and gulped in the fresh air.
Not so fresh, he thought with a frown, spluttering slightly. There was something a little off about the World. Smells were not as pleasant as they could be, and certainly without the nourishment to be found in Faerie. But he’d never bathed in the sea before and it was something he had to experience before he left.
His feet sank into the gritty sand as he sped lightly over it to the edge of the water. The sea was cold in the early morning, and the water whirling around his long toes ate away the sand beneath his feet. Taking a deep breath, he ran into the sea and dived into an oncoming wave. The water covered him; he was lost for a moment in an underwater world of green and silence, and then he came up for air. He flicked the wet strands of his long blond hair away from his face and scrubbed the water over his body to wash away the fruity stickiness of his skin.
Even though it was so early, the sun was hot and beat relentlessly down on his fair skin. He lay on his back in the water, floating, looking up at the cloudless sky. He tried to ignore the smell of oil in the salty water and enjoy the moment. This was a memory he wanted to take back with him to Faerie.
Elorien frowned. He would go back to Faerie this night. Elucinara and her Court would be waiting for his answer. What could he tell them -- that he was wrong? That he’d been a fool? He’d known as soon as he looked into Dario’s eyes that most of his life had been wasted in foolish arrogance.
But did he want Elucinara to know that? That was the real dilemma. He’d never liked the queen getting one over on him. She was too sure of herself by half. Still, fair was fair, and she deserved an honest answer. And he owed it to Dario.
He frowned as he thought of Dario. Leaving him would hurt like hell. He contemplated staying on in the World with him -- the tasteless food, the noxious smells, the sense that something was slightly off, the fact that everything was unreal and bland and cardboard. Everything except Dario, the only genuine person he had ever known and the only one he had ever loved. There was no question in his mind that his relationship with Guntoras was trite and meaningless in comparison. Completely insignificant.
Yet as much as he loved Dario, there was no question that Elorien could stay here. He could not survive so far from Faerie, away from his music. From what he had seen of Dario’s life, he knew Dario was someone of importance. He doubted Dario would go to Faerie with him and give it up. Elorien could never ask him to.
He stood up, the sea water swishing about his waist and down over his hips, his cock, his thighs and his lean long legs as he walked toward the shore. He looked up at Dario’s house and saw him standing on the porch, waving at him.
Grinning, Elorien waved back. He paced across the warming sand and was halfway to the porch when he realised that Dario wasn’t waving at all, but frantically motioning for him to come inside the house.
Elorien frowned and glided over the sand and up the porch to his side. Dario looked crumpled and tired, but still gorgeous even though he had a tea towel slung across his hips. Before Dario could open his mouth, Elorien had taken him in his arms and kissed him with a deep, yearning heat.
Elorien heard a series of clicks which seemed to go on forever. Dario struggled to pull away from him. “Paparazzi!” he said frantically. “Get inside the house!”
Elorien had a brief glimpse of two men emerging from amongst the bushes to the side of the porch. They held strange black boxes to their faces, boxes with a long snout which jutted out, pointed at him. The clicks came from the boxes, over and over. Then Dario dragged him into the house.
Dario locked the French windows and quickly let down the blinds, shutting them off from the men who were clambering onto his porch, black boxes clicking. As the last blind went down, one of the men lowered his black box, grinned, and gave them the thumbs up.
Dario turned to him, full of wrath. “What were you doing out there?”
“What’s wrong?” Elorien asked, tensing.
“You can’t go swimming naked in fucking Malibu,” Dario shouted, starting to pace before him. “Don’t you know they’re out there waiting to get the dirt on me? They’re going to make a small fortune on the pictures they just took. We just made their career!”
“I don’t understand,” Elorien said, bewildered. “Who are those men and what is the significance of the black box?”
Dario groaned and slapped a hand to his forehead. “They’re cameras, Elorien. Cameras. And those guys are paparazzi. They make their living getting pictures of famous people in compromising positions. And the
y just damned well hit the jackpot.”
Elorien looked at him uncomprehendingly. Dario shook his head, not trusting himself to speak, picked up a magazine from behind the bar and handed it to him. “I’m taking a shower,” he said gruffly, and stomped off up the stairs.
Elorien looked at the magazine in his hand and opened it up. “By the Sacred Tree,” he murmured as he flicked through it, comprehension beginning to dawn. He’d really gone and put his foot in it.
He winced as he heard Dario swear and punch the wall in the bathroom.
* * *
Dario stared at the television screen with something close to horror. He’d been watching the Entertainment Channel news all day, and it was just after lunch when a news bulletin cut across the biography of some little known director. They showed at least five pictures of Elorien emerging from the sea, naked as the day he was born, with his private parts fuzzed out for daytime television. Another six pictures of their embrace on the porch. Had his towel really slip? He didn’t remember that. But it must have or they wouldn’t have fuzzed out his bits as well. They left the butt shots in, though.
Elorien was amazingly photogenic.
After five minutes of watching the entertainment news anchors coming up with every clichéd innuendo inspired by the pictures and looking as if they were peeing their pants in glee, he switched off the television. He felt sick. This was worse than that doctor sticking his finger up his ass in a room full of interns when he’d had that intestinal complaint five years ago, then getting all the interns to do the same thing -- a memory that still made his balls shrink. This was much, much worse.
The telephone rang. Dario sighed. A thousand bucks said it was Karlie. He lifted the handset to his ear. “What the fuck were you thinking?” Karlie screamed at him immediately. He winced and held the phone out to a safe distance. It was going to be a long day.
* * *
Elorien squinted through the blue frosted glass beside the front door. It looked as though half the city was planted outside Dario’s front gate. Trucks were parked across the entrance, barring the gate, and people were talking to machines on stands that looked like the clicking boxes -- cameras -- from that morning. They’d been there for hours and they didn’t seem to be leaving even though dusk was falling, turning the blue sky to purple twilight. Was that someone handing out sandwiches? By the Sacred Tree, they were going to be there all night!
What Elves Eat Page 3
