The talk in "stuff" topic about Jonny being of faerie blood got me thinking about a story I wrote last month...so I guess I'll post it...my husband's eyes glossed over in boredom when he read it but hopefully someone here will find it amusing at least? So here it is, my first attempt at slash.
"Faeries"
1.
He sees me through the bookstore window. That's how we meet. I'm sitting behind the register, comfortably leaned back, drinking a cup of coffee and reading. That's what I'm usually doing. That's what passes for work. I love my plain, little humble job. My parents hate it - six years of college and I work in an antique bookstore. I haven't published anything yet, not even a short story in a magazine. They thought I'd grow out of writing and into teaching, but I didn't. So here I am, in my easy chair. I talk to a customer once in a while - they come in so infrequently that actually seeing a customer is a noteworthy event - we do most of our business online in this digital age. Even seeing my boss is an event. The store runs itself.
I'm sitting there reading. And there he is, looking in through the window. I don't see him so much at first as become aware of a presence. You know, like when you know you're being watched. I look up and see him for the first time.
At first I think of a ghost. Maybe the ghost of an elf. He's wearing this shimmery blouse, not a good word for a man's shirt, but that's what it is. The wind blows it to the shape of his body. He's thin. Lithe. He has long dark hair. He brushes it back off his face every so often as he watches me. He just stares. Blue eyes, bright blue, widen in their observation of me. His face is fine, chiseled cheekbones and everything just right in place. Not exactly manly, but not womanly or childish either. I stick by my first impression: the ghost of some long dead elf. Or the shadow of that elf crossed over from some other place.
I am not bothered by being looked at. I don't mind if people stare at me. It happens now and again. I'm scatterbrained. A typical academic. My appearance ranges from put-together to disheveled with mismatched socks. Today I was more or less put together. My face is utterly average. I'm the boy next door. Nothing to stare at, folks. This man looking through the window, he was the one someone should be staring at.
So, of course, my first thought is, 'what's wrong?'. I mentally - and visually - run over everything I could think of. Do I have something stuck to my shirt? Is there something on my face? I reach up to make sure none of my peanut butter sandwich has adhered to me. My hair? It feels all in place, such as it is. Short and, above all, very ordinary. I can't find anything wrong with me, so I go back to the book.
I try to read, but the feeling persists, nagging at me. He's still there. He's still staring at me. I look up and sure enough, he's still there.
I don't know why it didn't occur to me that there was more odd about him than just his abnormal interest in me. Why didn't I think of the fact that it had been in the teens that morning when I walked to work? Less with the wind-chill. My scarf and coat were hung by the door. If they hadn't reminded me, the blast of cold air in my face as I opened the front door would have.
The bells on it clanged as it opened. The guy looks down at them, for a moment distracted from me. Then he looks at me all over again. Curiously, this time. Not the wide open stare from before. I mean to open the door and say, 'Can I help you?'. I'm irritated, yeah, but it's not nice to holler, 'What the fuck are you staring at?' to potential customers. Maybe he was looking behind me, at the books. And, let's face it, you don't know me, but it's not like me to pick a confrontation even with someone who wants one. I look at the world with amusement most of the time. A crooked little smile hides whatever I'm really feeling.
"Jesus Christ," I say as the cold hits me. "Come in," I say, waving him in. He hesitated and then jerked forward, as if I was tugging on his string and had just gotten it taut. Snap, he goes past me into the bookstore. I shut the door in a hurry.
"Sit down," I say, and I wave my hand. I could have been waving at any number of chairs. The store is set up for lounging. He drops down immediately in the one nearest to us. Right by the door.
"No, over there," I say, pointing over to the desk. Why am I ordering this guy around? I halfway wonder to myself. Well, he just looks like he needs ordering. He gets up without a word and crosses the store. He walks across the store and his walk is like a model's. That criss-crossing gait fit more for a woman, and runway, than for a guy in an antique bookstore. But somehow it suits him. His ass swayed under that flimsy, oversize shirt of his. He wears blue jeans so old they were eaten away by time. I see a lot of his legs. One knobby looking knee. The aforementioned ass, even. One hole right at the top of his thigh. When he walked away I could see where thigh joined buttocks.
He's not wearing underwear. I look away quick. I'd blush, if I'd been the sort of person to blush. I'm straight. I don't look at other guys like that. But there's something about him, about the whole of him, that is irresistible to the eye. His body taunts me to look at it. Dares me to try to ignore it. It isn't just how he looks, but the whole of him. The way he moves. That sexy walk, though I think of it in so many words just yet. He looks back over his shoulder with a flip of that long mane of hair and sits down. I follow. I wonder briefly just who's giving the orders.
It clicks in my mind as I settle in behind the register and the small desk it sits on, that the guy's barefoot. No shoes, no socks, no nothing. Barefoot in the snow. I set this fact aside, seeing as it's irrelevant to the matter at hand. Serving a customer. That's what I set my mind to. Never mind that I'm beginning to wonder if my mind's playing tricks on me.
I set my elbows on the table and clasp my hands together. "Now, what can I help you with?" He doesn't say anything. He just scoots around in his chair so he can mimic me, mirroring my position, and maybe even my expression.
"Well?" I prompt. Nothing. I reach to smooth my hair back and he does the same. I set my hands down on the desk and he follows. Now I'm getting annoyed.
"Can you stop doing that?" I say.
"Can you stop doing that?" he repeats. He hesitates and takes the words slowly.
"Yes, can you stop doing that?" I repeat. I smile my half a smile. I feel a little less irritated, for I begin to realize this guy is an idiot. A simpleton or a nut, hopefully a harmless one. He looks harmless.
"Yes," he says, in the same hesitating tone of voice. "Yes. Yes, I can stop doing that." He smiles his own smile at me. A tiny thing it is, fleeting across his face before settling to a small smirk. He rests his hands on his lap now. He smiles and nods at me, looking down at his hands in a couple quick glances. Like he's fishing for approval. I figure it's best to humor him.
"Good," I say. I wait. Nothing. I hold back a sigh. "Can I help you?" I repeat, enunciating very carefully.
"Hmm?" he says. "Oh, right. This is a bookstore."
"Yes. Yes it is," I say. His eyes roll up, looking at the ceiling as he thinks. He seizes on a thought he finds somewhere up by the light fixture.
"Fairies," he says.
"Fairies?" I ask. Is he crazy? Or looking for a book? My bookseller self kicks in, and begins rattling through the corridors of my brain thinking of what we've got in stock.
"Uh-huh," he says with a nod. "Fairies. Umm..." he pauses to consult the light fixture again. He points at jabbing finger at me as he thinks of what he wants. "The Mabinogion," he says, delighted with himself. He's distracted by his own jabbing finger. He sits on his hands to make amends with me.
"The Mabinogion," I repeat. Now my brain has something to seize on. The crazy man wants the Mabinogion. He probably doesn't even have a dime on him. But I'd rather play bookseller than baby-sit an idiot 'til the nut wagon gets here. So, for the moment, until proven otherwise, he's a customer, and I'm just my plain old charming self.
"Any particular edition or translation you're looking for?" I ask. He shrugs.
"Something old, I think. Something that smells like time," he clarifies. Something that smells like time. O-KAY. Well, I skip over that part and I get up and head for the back of the store. He follows on my heels, springing up out of the chair like a jack in the box. I'd rather he not follow me, in fact, no customers are allowed in the back room, but it's easier to just let him come. I ignore him. I set my mind to looking through the high, long shelves of books. Really, the backroom only differs from the front in that there are no places for lounging around. This is a place for searching. Searching for something old, something valuable. Something that smells like time.
"It's nice back here," he says. He really means it. He likes it.
"Yeah," I say, and ignore him. Maybe he likes it because it smells like time. Old books and old wood. Old trodden on carpet, worn thin in places. Still dark red and plush in others. Actually, I like it back here too. But I don't tell him that because I don't want to encourage him. I'm doing my best to maintain the customer/clerk illusion. I'm not eager to hear the sirens coming for him anytime soon.
No, it's not on this shelf. Things are organized in here. I know, because I organized them. Sometimes I wonder what I was thinking, though, what odd standard I was adhering to in days gone by. I've been working here since I first started college. My 26 year old self has long since forgotten the logic my 18 year old self ran by. I lead the guy deeper into the bowels of the back room, back to where it's not quite so nice. The place runs like a maze. I wonder for a second if I'd hear the door if anyone came in. I dismiss the thought. It doesn't really matter because nobody's going to come in. Two customers in a day would be a record. No, nobody's going to come in, especially not on a shitty, miserably cold day like today. Except, of course, for the barefoot nut.
"Here," I say. I extract my dusty prize from the shelf. "It's the earliest one we have. It's that, and what else?" I ask myself. It's a book with three of the oldest collections of Irish mythology. What else was in this one? I thumb through it, since the spine was more or less unreadable.
He startles me by taking it out of my hands. He holds it open, staring down.
"This means something to you," he says.
"Well, yes. It's valuable," I say. I'm not too worried. Nut or not, he's handling it gently. His hands are fine and thin. He doesn't look like he could intentionally damage anything. It's just not in those hands. Not in that body. Not in those wondering blue eyes.
He shakes his head, no. "Not that. The stories, I mean."
"The stories? Well, I guess so. I like to read. I've read it before, yeah. Guess I liked it. I don't know," I say. I'm not quite sure what he's fishing for. He closes the book and tucks it under his arm. He smiles at me in a way I find unnerving. As if I'm being peered through. As if he's plumbing the depths of my memory.
"Have you ever met one?" he asks.
"One what?"
"One of the tuatha-de-danaan. A sidthe. The good folk. The wee people. A fairy," he says, smirking at me. I frown a little at him. Yes, I am familiar with the old names. He needn't be so smart alecky about it. I'm sure I'm a lot better read and educated than this nut.
"No. Why? Have you?" I ask, a bit smart alecky myself. Yeah, I'm annoyed enough that I'm willing to risk the seller/buyer relationship. I mean, what if he says -
He cuts my thought off with a laugh, issuing forth from a wide open smile. He curbs the laughter with a bit of difficulty so he can answer my question.
"Yes. Lots of them," he says. Laughing, but perfectly serious.
"That's nice," I say, since I can't think of anything better. We stand there for a long silence. Awkward on my part, mirthful on his. At last he breaks it.
"Can you put this back?" he says, handing the book to me.
"You don't want it?" I say. He shrugs.
"I don't have any money, and I know all the stories by heart anyway," he tells me. "Is there somewhere back here we can sit down?"
What for? I want to ask. But I say, "I have to get back and watch the register."
He laughs. "No one is coming in today but barefoot nuts, James," he says, grinning.
How does he know my thoughts? Or my name, more importantly? My face must have my questions written all over it.
"Lucky guess," he tells me. Which question he's answering I don't know. I just accept it. I feel a bit nervous. It's time for him to go.
"We can sit down back here," I say. Why do I say that? I lead him back to a storage room. It's storing nothing really. An old carpet partly folded up. Why the heck do I lead him back here? Why do I sit on the carpet that's more like an impromptu pallet? A bed?
"Is this okay?" I ask as we sit down side by side.
"Yeah. It's fine, James," he says. He reaches over and touches my face. My lips. My heart is pounding. I look at the wall. I have all kinds of questions, or I should have questions. Really, I should get the hell out of there, shouldn't I? I don't. I ask what I want to know.
"What's your name?" I say.
"Siathan," he says. His hand drops to my shoulder, still gently running over my flesh and bones. That's what it feels like. Like I can feel his touch all the way to the core of me. An excitement I can't just put off to the situation. As ridiculous as that sounds. I'm open-minded. I take things in stride. He's knocking me off-keel. I'm a ship tossed on the ocean. I feel like I'm drifting.
Siathan. His name soaks into me, in my wide open mind. It's a bit like Sheehan. Or like Sean, with a breath of air in the middle. Somewhere between the two.
"Siathan," I say. It rolls off my tongue, like he's an old friend. Like I've been addressing him all my life. He nods. He turns to me, coming a bit closer. He's going to kiss me - why don't I say no? I wonder...No, I don't wonder. His body is taunting me. It dares me to refuse. If I say no now, I'll never feel this way again. I'll never get to feel what lies on the other side of this feeling. So I don't say no. But I do speak. I can't quite turn myself and all that I've ever been off in an instant and just go with this.
"Where are you from?" I say in a conversational tone, very inappropriate to the moment. He laughs a little.
"You already know that," he chides me, and leans in for a kiss. He kisses me gently for some time, exploring me. I kiss him back. A little. He pulls away to say something.
"Do you want to be naked?" he asks. Seriously. I laugh now. I shrug. I say nothing but I start undressing. Yes, I do want to be naked. Right now that's all I want. To be naked and laying beside this otherworldly creature. He nods, and takes off his clothes. I'm interrupted in my own undressing by his fingers. Not by them touching me but the way they move, the way they deftly undo his buttons. Blouse and jeans. I'm entranced by the sight of him stripping his clothes off. My earlier suspicion is confirmed. He didn't have any underwear on. He shrugs his shoulders and lets his shirt just fall off, airily floating to the floor. The jeans he wriggles off. They puddle around his ankles before his kicks them off and he's naked. He's sitting next to me. His cock poking up, long and hard out of a thicket of curly reddish brown hair. That's the only hair he has, except the hair on his head, and the soft downy hair on his legs.
I'm staring at him now. I try to get back on track, to get undressed. But the sight of his erection has gotten my own going, and very uncomfortably. All these feelings -whatever has been stirring inside me since I first watched him wiggle his ass as he walked across the store - all those feelings have settled right him my cock. I know right now I want to fuck him. I want to claim him, this crazy vagabond. From where? I don't know. At least I tell myself I don't. He smiles at me, first knowingly, then shy.
"I've never done this before," he tells me. I find it hard to believe. Still there's something about the awkwardness of the moment - on my part and his - that makes me believe him.
"Never?" I ask. He shakes his head no and giggles at me.
"Never," he says, apologetically. The little giggle, the apology make me wonder -
"With a man? With a woman?" I ask. He shakes his head, no, he hasn't.
"Never with any of you before," he confirms, sheepishly. His face is even a bit pinkish with embarrassment. Or excitement.
Never with any of us, he said. As if he wasn't one of us. He says I know where he's from. Implied in that is that I know what he is. I think I do. I know I know, but I tell myself I don't because, well, he's supposed to be the nut, not me.
"Okay," I say. It is absolutely the most uncommitted two syllables anyone on Earth has ever uttered. Am I going to take the lead? Can I? I don't even know what I'm doing. Not with a guy. Even a fairy. He looks like a guy after all.
Forget I said that. Fairy. I'm not the nut.
But I do. I take the lead. I get my clothes off. They tangle around me somehow, buttons acting stubborn. They're asking me to reconsider. But all they get for their efforts it crumpled up in a pile. Near Siathan's clothes. They can all keep each other company. Protest among themselves. Me, my mind is on nothing but Siathan, and relieving this heat, this new found desire that's built up in me.
I am on him in an instant. Figuratively and literally. He barely has time to look over my nakedness, to make comparisons (and the shortness of his view is intentional on my part) before I push him back down on to our makeshift marital bed. Marital bed? Yes, I have some feeling, some gut instinct that this will bind us together in ways I don't yet understand. And not understanding, I shouldn't be so eager to embrace this - to embrace him - but I am. I want it. I want whatever he's offering and I want to keep it. To hold onto it for as long as I can. To catch him. He doesn't yet know he can get better than me. He's a babe walking in our world, and I, for once in my life, am going to cheat a bit. I'm going to have him. Take him.
He's smiling underneath me, in the instant before I kiss him. I wonder if he knows what I was thinking. Maybe he's only smiling at the fact that I want him so much. My lips wipe the smile off his face. My body rubs against his.
He speaks in gasps between kisses. "Is it supposed to feel like this?"
"Like what?" I breathe into his mouth.
"So...overwhelming," he says with some difficulty. My only answer is to reach down and take his cock in my hand. His body jerks underneath me.
"Stop," he says. Is he frightened? Has he never felt this before? Oh, God, I hope I am the first. I want to be the first. The first to make him come. I don't stop at all. I keep at it. He looks up at me with wide eyes, maybe, yes, definitely frightened. I kiss him again.
"Yes, that's how it's supposed to feel. Just relax. Let go," I urge him. He nods. The nod says he'll try. He's moaning and biting at my neck as I stroke his cock. Then his hips start moving. He thrusts into my hand.
"That's right," I assure him. "Just let go." He kisses and bites at me once more, looking up at me piteously.
"It hurts," he mutters. "It hurts..." his voice drifts off, as his thrusts into my hand become more urgent. His eyes close, he gasps, and his whole body convulses under me. I feel his wetness on my hand, and in-between us. He's looking up at me in wordless wonder. At the giver of this pleasure. Wide-eyed. I kiss him, and he kisses me back eagerly. Maybe even more hungry. Hungry for more, now that he's died the little death. He's been reborn as someone else. He's been initiated. He's one of us now. At least for this moment.
He waits in the afterglow of this moment. Waiting, not knowing what to do. I reach for his hand and guide it to my cock. He takes me gently in his fist. I move his hand, up, down. Then I move my hand away and let him stroke me. I fuck into his hand. Whether he knows very much what he's doing or not - he holds me too tight, to the point of being painful, and he barely makes a motion - none of this matters. It takes only a few thrusts and I shake from deep inside myself, emptying onto him, before I collapse on him, kissing him. He watches it all, in his afterglow, with an eager enthusiasm. He wants to do whatever it is he's supposed to do. He wants to be led. He wants to be fucked.
Later, I tell myself. For now, we are laying here, warm and sticky, kissing. It's enough.
"Faeries"
1.
He sees me through the bookstore window. That's how we meet. I'm sitting behind the register, comfortably leaned back, drinking a cup of coffee and reading. That's what I'm usually doing. That's what passes for work. I love my plain, little humble job. My parents hate it - six years of college and I work in an antique bookstore. I haven't published anything yet, not even a short story in a magazine. They thought I'd grow out of writing and into teaching, but I didn't. So here I am, in my easy chair. I talk to a customer once in a while - they come in so infrequently that actually seeing a customer is a noteworthy event - we do most of our business online in this digital age. Even seeing my boss is an event. The store runs itself.
I'm sitting there reading. And there he is, looking in through the window. I don't see him so much at first as become aware of a presence. You know, like when you know you're being watched. I look up and see him for the first time.
At first I think of a ghost. Maybe the ghost of an elf. He's wearing this shimmery blouse, not a good word for a man's shirt, but that's what it is. The wind blows it to the shape of his body. He's thin. Lithe. He has long dark hair. He brushes it back off his face every so often as he watches me. He just stares. Blue eyes, bright blue, widen in their observation of me. His face is fine, chiseled cheekbones and everything just right in place. Not exactly manly, but not womanly or childish either. I stick by my first impression: the ghost of some long dead elf. Or the shadow of that elf crossed over from some other place.
I am not bothered by being looked at. I don't mind if people stare at me. It happens now and again. I'm scatterbrained. A typical academic. My appearance ranges from put-together to disheveled with mismatched socks. Today I was more or less put together. My face is utterly average. I'm the boy next door. Nothing to stare at, folks. This man looking through the window, he was the one someone should be staring at.
So, of course, my first thought is, 'what's wrong?'. I mentally - and visually - run over everything I could think of. Do I have something stuck to my shirt? Is there something on my face? I reach up to make sure none of my peanut butter sandwich has adhered to me. My hair? It feels all in place, such as it is. Short and, above all, very ordinary. I can't find anything wrong with me, so I go back to the book.
I try to read, but the feeling persists, nagging at me. He's still there. He's still staring at me. I look up and sure enough, he's still there.
I don't know why it didn't occur to me that there was more odd about him than just his abnormal interest in me. Why didn't I think of the fact that it had been in the teens that morning when I walked to work? Less with the wind-chill. My scarf and coat were hung by the door. If they hadn't reminded me, the blast of cold air in my face as I opened the front door would have.
The bells on it clanged as it opened. The guy looks down at them, for a moment distracted from me. Then he looks at me all over again. Curiously, this time. Not the wide open stare from before. I mean to open the door and say, 'Can I help you?'. I'm irritated, yeah, but it's not nice to holler, 'What the fuck are you staring at?' to potential customers. Maybe he was looking behind me, at the books. And, let's face it, you don't know me, but it's not like me to pick a confrontation even with someone who wants one. I look at the world with amusement most of the time. A crooked little smile hides whatever I'm really feeling.
"Jesus Christ," I say as the cold hits me. "Come in," I say, waving him in. He hesitated and then jerked forward, as if I was tugging on his string and had just gotten it taut. Snap, he goes past me into the bookstore. I shut the door in a hurry.
"Sit down," I say, and I wave my hand. I could have been waving at any number of chairs. The store is set up for lounging. He drops down immediately in the one nearest to us. Right by the door.
"No, over there," I say, pointing over to the desk. Why am I ordering this guy around? I halfway wonder to myself. Well, he just looks like he needs ordering. He gets up without a word and crosses the store. He walks across the store and his walk is like a model's. That criss-crossing gait fit more for a woman, and runway, than for a guy in an antique bookstore. But somehow it suits him. His ass swayed under that flimsy, oversize shirt of his. He wears blue jeans so old they were eaten away by time. I see a lot of his legs. One knobby looking knee. The aforementioned ass, even. One hole right at the top of his thigh. When he walked away I could see where thigh joined buttocks.
He's not wearing underwear. I look away quick. I'd blush, if I'd been the sort of person to blush. I'm straight. I don't look at other guys like that. But there's something about him, about the whole of him, that is irresistible to the eye. His body taunts me to look at it. Dares me to try to ignore it. It isn't just how he looks, but the whole of him. The way he moves. That sexy walk, though I think of it in so many words just yet. He looks back over his shoulder with a flip of that long mane of hair and sits down. I follow. I wonder briefly just who's giving the orders.
It clicks in my mind as I settle in behind the register and the small desk it sits on, that the guy's barefoot. No shoes, no socks, no nothing. Barefoot in the snow. I set this fact aside, seeing as it's irrelevant to the matter at hand. Serving a customer. That's what I set my mind to. Never mind that I'm beginning to wonder if my mind's playing tricks on me.
I set my elbows on the table and clasp my hands together. "Now, what can I help you with?" He doesn't say anything. He just scoots around in his chair so he can mimic me, mirroring my position, and maybe even my expression.
"Well?" I prompt. Nothing. I reach to smooth my hair back and he does the same. I set my hands down on the desk and he follows. Now I'm getting annoyed.
"Can you stop doing that?" I say.
"Can you stop doing that?" he repeats. He hesitates and takes the words slowly.
"Yes, can you stop doing that?" I repeat. I smile my half a smile. I feel a little less irritated, for I begin to realize this guy is an idiot. A simpleton or a nut, hopefully a harmless one. He looks harmless.
"Yes," he says, in the same hesitating tone of voice. "Yes. Yes, I can stop doing that." He smiles his own smile at me. A tiny thing it is, fleeting across his face before settling to a small smirk. He rests his hands on his lap now. He smiles and nods at me, looking down at his hands in a couple quick glances. Like he's fishing for approval. I figure it's best to humor him.
"Good," I say. I wait. Nothing. I hold back a sigh. "Can I help you?" I repeat, enunciating very carefully.
"Hmm?" he says. "Oh, right. This is a bookstore."
"Yes. Yes it is," I say. His eyes roll up, looking at the ceiling as he thinks. He seizes on a thought he finds somewhere up by the light fixture.
"Fairies," he says.
"Fairies?" I ask. Is he crazy? Or looking for a book? My bookseller self kicks in, and begins rattling through the corridors of my brain thinking of what we've got in stock.
"Uh-huh," he says with a nod. "Fairies. Umm..." he pauses to consult the light fixture again. He points at jabbing finger at me as he thinks of what he wants. "The Mabinogion," he says, delighted with himself. He's distracted by his own jabbing finger. He sits on his hands to make amends with me.
"The Mabinogion," I repeat. Now my brain has something to seize on. The crazy man wants the Mabinogion. He probably doesn't even have a dime on him. But I'd rather play bookseller than baby-sit an idiot 'til the nut wagon gets here. So, for the moment, until proven otherwise, he's a customer, and I'm just my plain old charming self.
"Any particular edition or translation you're looking for?" I ask. He shrugs.
"Something old, I think. Something that smells like time," he clarifies. Something that smells like time. O-KAY. Well, I skip over that part and I get up and head for the back of the store. He follows on my heels, springing up out of the chair like a jack in the box. I'd rather he not follow me, in fact, no customers are allowed in the back room, but it's easier to just let him come. I ignore him. I set my mind to looking through the high, long shelves of books. Really, the backroom only differs from the front in that there are no places for lounging around. This is a place for searching. Searching for something old, something valuable. Something that smells like time.
"It's nice back here," he says. He really means it. He likes it.
"Yeah," I say, and ignore him. Maybe he likes it because it smells like time. Old books and old wood. Old trodden on carpet, worn thin in places. Still dark red and plush in others. Actually, I like it back here too. But I don't tell him that because I don't want to encourage him. I'm doing my best to maintain the customer/clerk illusion. I'm not eager to hear the sirens coming for him anytime soon.
No, it's not on this shelf. Things are organized in here. I know, because I organized them. Sometimes I wonder what I was thinking, though, what odd standard I was adhering to in days gone by. I've been working here since I first started college. My 26 year old self has long since forgotten the logic my 18 year old self ran by. I lead the guy deeper into the bowels of the back room, back to where it's not quite so nice. The place runs like a maze. I wonder for a second if I'd hear the door if anyone came in. I dismiss the thought. It doesn't really matter because nobody's going to come in. Two customers in a day would be a record. No, nobody's going to come in, especially not on a shitty, miserably cold day like today. Except, of course, for the barefoot nut.
"Here," I say. I extract my dusty prize from the shelf. "It's the earliest one we have. It's that, and what else?" I ask myself. It's a book with three of the oldest collections of Irish mythology. What else was in this one? I thumb through it, since the spine was more or less unreadable.
He startles me by taking it out of my hands. He holds it open, staring down.
"This means something to you," he says.
"Well, yes. It's valuable," I say. I'm not too worried. Nut or not, he's handling it gently. His hands are fine and thin. He doesn't look like he could intentionally damage anything. It's just not in those hands. Not in that body. Not in those wondering blue eyes.
He shakes his head, no. "Not that. The stories, I mean."
"The stories? Well, I guess so. I like to read. I've read it before, yeah. Guess I liked it. I don't know," I say. I'm not quite sure what he's fishing for. He closes the book and tucks it under his arm. He smiles at me in a way I find unnerving. As if I'm being peered through. As if he's plumbing the depths of my memory.
"Have you ever met one?" he asks.
"One what?"
"One of the tuatha-de-danaan. A sidthe. The good folk. The wee people. A fairy," he says, smirking at me. I frown a little at him. Yes, I am familiar with the old names. He needn't be so smart alecky about it. I'm sure I'm a lot better read and educated than this nut.
"No. Why? Have you?" I ask, a bit smart alecky myself. Yeah, I'm annoyed enough that I'm willing to risk the seller/buyer relationship. I mean, what if he says -
He cuts my thought off with a laugh, issuing forth from a wide open smile. He curbs the laughter with a bit of difficulty so he can answer my question.
"Yes. Lots of them," he says. Laughing, but perfectly serious.
"That's nice," I say, since I can't think of anything better. We stand there for a long silence. Awkward on my part, mirthful on his. At last he breaks it.
"Can you put this back?" he says, handing the book to me.
"You don't want it?" I say. He shrugs.
"I don't have any money, and I know all the stories by heart anyway," he tells me. "Is there somewhere back here we can sit down?"
What for? I want to ask. But I say, "I have to get back and watch the register."
He laughs. "No one is coming in today but barefoot nuts, James," he says, grinning.
How does he know my thoughts? Or my name, more importantly? My face must have my questions written all over it.
"Lucky guess," he tells me. Which question he's answering I don't know. I just accept it. I feel a bit nervous. It's time for him to go.
"We can sit down back here," I say. Why do I say that? I lead him back to a storage room. It's storing nothing really. An old carpet partly folded up. Why the heck do I lead him back here? Why do I sit on the carpet that's more like an impromptu pallet? A bed?
"Is this okay?" I ask as we sit down side by side.
"Yeah. It's fine, James," he says. He reaches over and touches my face. My lips. My heart is pounding. I look at the wall. I have all kinds of questions, or I should have questions. Really, I should get the hell out of there, shouldn't I? I don't. I ask what I want to know.
"What's your name?" I say.
"Siathan," he says. His hand drops to my shoulder, still gently running over my flesh and bones. That's what it feels like. Like I can feel his touch all the way to the core of me. An excitement I can't just put off to the situation. As ridiculous as that sounds. I'm open-minded. I take things in stride. He's knocking me off-keel. I'm a ship tossed on the ocean. I feel like I'm drifting.
Siathan. His name soaks into me, in my wide open mind. It's a bit like Sheehan. Or like Sean, with a breath of air in the middle. Somewhere between the two.
"Siathan," I say. It rolls off my tongue, like he's an old friend. Like I've been addressing him all my life. He nods. He turns to me, coming a bit closer. He's going to kiss me - why don't I say no? I wonder...No, I don't wonder. His body is taunting me. It dares me to refuse. If I say no now, I'll never feel this way again. I'll never get to feel what lies on the other side of this feeling. So I don't say no. But I do speak. I can't quite turn myself and all that I've ever been off in an instant and just go with this.
"Where are you from?" I say in a conversational tone, very inappropriate to the moment. He laughs a little.
"You already know that," he chides me, and leans in for a kiss. He kisses me gently for some time, exploring me. I kiss him back. A little. He pulls away to say something.
"Do you want to be naked?" he asks. Seriously. I laugh now. I shrug. I say nothing but I start undressing. Yes, I do want to be naked. Right now that's all I want. To be naked and laying beside this otherworldly creature. He nods, and takes off his clothes. I'm interrupted in my own undressing by his fingers. Not by them touching me but the way they move, the way they deftly undo his buttons. Blouse and jeans. I'm entranced by the sight of him stripping his clothes off. My earlier suspicion is confirmed. He didn't have any underwear on. He shrugs his shoulders and lets his shirt just fall off, airily floating to the floor. The jeans he wriggles off. They puddle around his ankles before his kicks them off and he's naked. He's sitting next to me. His cock poking up, long and hard out of a thicket of curly reddish brown hair. That's the only hair he has, except the hair on his head, and the soft downy hair on his legs.
I'm staring at him now. I try to get back on track, to get undressed. But the sight of his erection has gotten my own going, and very uncomfortably. All these feelings -whatever has been stirring inside me since I first watched him wiggle his ass as he walked across the store - all those feelings have settled right him my cock. I know right now I want to fuck him. I want to claim him, this crazy vagabond. From where? I don't know. At least I tell myself I don't. He smiles at me, first knowingly, then shy.
"I've never done this before," he tells me. I find it hard to believe. Still there's something about the awkwardness of the moment - on my part and his - that makes me believe him.
"Never?" I ask. He shakes his head no and giggles at me.
"Never," he says, apologetically. The little giggle, the apology make me wonder -
"With a man? With a woman?" I ask. He shakes his head, no, he hasn't.
"Never with any of you before," he confirms, sheepishly. His face is even a bit pinkish with embarrassment. Or excitement.
Never with any of us, he said. As if he wasn't one of us. He says I know where he's from. Implied in that is that I know what he is. I think I do. I know I know, but I tell myself I don't because, well, he's supposed to be the nut, not me.
"Okay," I say. It is absolutely the most uncommitted two syllables anyone on Earth has ever uttered. Am I going to take the lead? Can I? I don't even know what I'm doing. Not with a guy. Even a fairy. He looks like a guy after all.
Forget I said that. Fairy. I'm not the nut.
But I do. I take the lead. I get my clothes off. They tangle around me somehow, buttons acting stubborn. They're asking me to reconsider. But all they get for their efforts it crumpled up in a pile. Near Siathan's clothes. They can all keep each other company. Protest among themselves. Me, my mind is on nothing but Siathan, and relieving this heat, this new found desire that's built up in me.
I am on him in an instant. Figuratively and literally. He barely has time to look over my nakedness, to make comparisons (and the shortness of his view is intentional on my part) before I push him back down on to our makeshift marital bed. Marital bed? Yes, I have some feeling, some gut instinct that this will bind us together in ways I don't yet understand. And not understanding, I shouldn't be so eager to embrace this - to embrace him - but I am. I want it. I want whatever he's offering and I want to keep it. To hold onto it for as long as I can. To catch him. He doesn't yet know he can get better than me. He's a babe walking in our world, and I, for once in my life, am going to cheat a bit. I'm going to have him. Take him.
He's smiling underneath me, in the instant before I kiss him. I wonder if he knows what I was thinking. Maybe he's only smiling at the fact that I want him so much. My lips wipe the smile off his face. My body rubs against his.
He speaks in gasps between kisses. "Is it supposed to feel like this?"
"Like what?" I breathe into his mouth.
"So...overwhelming," he says with some difficulty. My only answer is to reach down and take his cock in my hand. His body jerks underneath me.
"Stop," he says. Is he frightened? Has he never felt this before? Oh, God, I hope I am the first. I want to be the first. The first to make him come. I don't stop at all. I keep at it. He looks up at me with wide eyes, maybe, yes, definitely frightened. I kiss him again.
"Yes, that's how it's supposed to feel. Just relax. Let go," I urge him. He nods. The nod says he'll try. He's moaning and biting at my neck as I stroke his cock. Then his hips start moving. He thrusts into my hand.
"That's right," I assure him. "Just let go." He kisses and bites at me once more, looking up at me piteously.
"It hurts," he mutters. "It hurts..." his voice drifts off, as his thrusts into my hand become more urgent. His eyes close, he gasps, and his whole body convulses under me. I feel his wetness on my hand, and in-between us. He's looking up at me in wordless wonder. At the giver of this pleasure. Wide-eyed. I kiss him, and he kisses me back eagerly. Maybe even more hungry. Hungry for more, now that he's died the little death. He's been reborn as someone else. He's been initiated. He's one of us now. At least for this moment.
He waits in the afterglow of this moment. Waiting, not knowing what to do. I reach for his hand and guide it to my cock. He takes me gently in his fist. I move his hand, up, down. Then I move my hand away and let him stroke me. I fuck into his hand. Whether he knows very much what he's doing or not - he holds me too tight, to the point of being painful, and he barely makes a motion - none of this matters. It takes only a few thrusts and I shake from deep inside myself, emptying onto him, before I collapse on him, kissing him. He watches it all, in his afterglow, with an eager enthusiasm. He wants to do whatever it is he's supposed to do. He wants to be led. He wants to be fucked.
Later, I tell myself. For now, we are laying here, warm and sticky, kissing. It's enough.
